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phC ressj SENATE { D # C „ U *?? T 

id ■ m I 1 No. 266 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST 



REPORT OF THE 

AMERICAN MILITARY MISSION 
TO ARMENIA 



By 

Ma j. Gen. James G. Harbord 

U. S. ARMY 

(APPENDIX ONLY) 




PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE 
April 13, 1920.— Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1920 












\ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Letter to Secretary of State submitting report of American Military Mission to 

Armenia 3 

History and present situation of Armenian people 4 

Political situation and suggestions for readjustment 1 L 

Conditions and problems involved in a mandate for Turkey and Transcaucasia. 20 

The military problem • 2L 

Conclusions 24 



EXHIBITS. 

[Appended at end of report.] 

A. — Map showing routes, including distances, covered by the mission. (See frontis- 
piece.) (Not printed.) 

B. — Joint letter, October 15, 1919, from Armenian patriarch, Catholic Armenian! 
patriarch, and the Vekil of Armenian Protestant communities to Gen. Harbord. . 

C. — Statement of Mustapha Kemal Pasha concerning organization, objects, "League 
for the defense of the rights of Anatolia and Roumelia." 

D. — Gen. Harbord's letter of October 9, 1919, to Mustapha Kemal Pasha. 

E. — Declaration of the Congress of Sivas. 

F. — Resolution of National Congress of Sivas addressed to the Senate of the United 
States of America requesting that Senatorial committee visit and investigate 
conditions within the Ottoman Empire. 

G. — Population and resources. 






LIST OF APPENDIXES. 

A. — Political factors and problems, by Capt. Stanley K. Hornbeck, Ordnance Depart- 
ment, United States Army. 
B. — Government in Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Lieut. Col. Jasper Y. Brinton, 

judge advocate, United States Army. 
C. — Public and private finance of Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Prof. W. W. Cumber- 
land. 
D. — Commerce and industry in Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Trade Commissioner 

Eliot Grinnell Mears. 
E. — Public health and sanitation, by Col. Henry Beeuwkes, Medical Corps, United 

States Army. 
F. — Population; industrial and other qualities; maintenance, by Lieut. Col. John 

Price Jackson, Engineers, United States Army. 
G. — Climate, natural resources, animal industry, and agriculture, by Lieut. Col. E. 

Bowditch, Infantry, United States Army. 
H. — Geography, mining, and boundaries, by'Maj. Lawrence Martin, General Staff, 

United States Army. 
I.— The press of Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Maj. Harold W. Clark, Infantry, ! 

United States Army. 
J.— The military problem of a mandatory, by Brig. Gen. Geo. Van Horn Moseley, 

General Staff, United States Army. , . 

K. — Transport and communications in Asia Minor and the Transcaucasus, by William 

B. Poland, Engineer member of the mission. 
L. — Bibliography. 

2 ®Q #f B<3 



MAY 



mm. 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 



American Military Mission to Armenia, 
On Hoard U. S. S. Martha Washington, October 16, 1919. 

From: Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord, United States Army. 

To: The Secretary of State. 

Subject: Report of the American Military Mission to Armenia. 

The undersigned submits herewith the report of the American 
Military Mission to Armenia. The mission, organized under authority 
of the President, consisted of Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord, United 
States Army; Brig. Gen. Frank R. McCoy, United States Army; 
Brio-. Gen. George Van Horn Moseley, United States Army; Col. 
Henry Beeuwkes, Medical Corps, United States Army: Lieut. Col. 
John Price Jackson, United States Engineers; Lieut. Col. Jasper Y. 
Brinton, judge advocate, United States Army; Lieut, Col. Edward 
Bowditch, jr., Infantry, United States Army; Commander W. W. 
Bertholf, United States Navy; Maj. Lawrence Martin, General Staff, 
United States Army: Maj. Harold Clark, Infantry, United States 
Army; Capt. Stanley K. Horn beck, Ordnance Department, United 
States Army (chief of Far Eastern Division, An erican Commission 
to Negotiate Peace); Mr. William B. Poland, chief of the American 
Relief Comn ission for Belgium and Northern France; Prof. W. W. 
Cumberland, economic advisor to the American Commission to 
Negotiate Peace; Mr. Eliot Grinnell Mears, trade commissioner, 
Department of Commerce, with other officers, clerks, interpreters, 
etc. 

The instructions to the mission were to — 

Proceed without delay on a Government vessel to Constantinople, Batum, and such 
other phi' es in Armenia, Russian Transi au< asia, and Syria, as will enable you to 
carry out instructions already dis< ussed With you. It is desired that you investigate 
and report on political, military, geographical, administrative, economic,- and other 
considerations involved in possible American interests and responsibilities in that 
region . 

The mission proceeded by ship to Constantinople. From there it 
traveled by the Bagdad Railway to Adana near the northeastern coast 
of the Mediterranean Sea; the scene of the massacres of 1909, and .'the 
principal city of the rich Province of Cilicia, where two days were spent 
visiting Tarsus, and the ports of Ayas and Mersina; thence continued 
by rail via Aleppo to Mardin; from there by motor car to Diarbekir, 
Kharput, Malatia, Sivas, Erzinjan, Erzerum, Kars, Erivan, and 
Tiflis; thence by rail to Baku and Batum. Erivan, Tiflis, and Baku 
are the capitals, respectively, of the Republics of Armenia, Georgia, 
and Azarbaijan, and Batum is the seat of the British military govern- 
ment of the Georgian district of that name. Members of the mission 
also traveled by carriage from LHa-Kishla to Sivas; from Sivas to 
Samsun; visiting Marsovan where there is much apprehension among 
the Armenian population at this time; from Trebizoncl to Erzerum; 

3 



4 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

by horseback from Khorasan to Bayazid; from Erivan to Nakhichevan, 
near the Persian border. The Armenian Catholicos, His Holiness 
Kevork V, was visited at Etchmiadzin the historic seat of the Arme- 
nian Church, with its ancient cathedral dated from 301 A. D. The 
mission traversed Asia Minor for its entire length and the Trans- 
caucasus from north to south and east to west. All of the Vilayets 
of Turkish Armenia were visited except Van and Bitlis, which were 
inaccessible in the time available, but which have been well covered 
by Capt. Niles, an Army officer who inspected them on horseback in 
August, and whose report corroborates our observations in the neigh- 
boring regions; as well as both Provinces of the Armenian Republic, 
and the Republics of Azarbaijan and Georgia. The Turkish frontier 
was paralleled from the Black Sea to Persia. On the return voyage 
from Batum the mission visited Samsun, the port of one of the world's 
great tobacco regions, and Trebizond, the latter a principal port on 
the south shore of the Black Sea, terminus of the ancient caravan 
route to Persia, of historic interest as the point where the Greek 
10,000 reached the sea under Xenophon over 2,300 years ago. 

The mission spent 30 days in Asia Minor and Transcaucasia, and 
interviewed at length representatives of every Government exer- 
cising sovereignty in that region, as well as individual Turks, Arme- 
nians, Greeks, Kurds, Tartars, Georgians, Russians, Persians, Jews, 
Arabs, British, and French, including Americans for some time domi- 
ciled in the country. It also gave consideration to the views of the 
various educational, religious, and charitable organizations sup- 
ported by America. In addition to this personal contact the mission 
before leaving Paris was in frequent conference with the various dele- 
gations to the peace conference from the regions visited. It has had 
before it numerous reports of the American Committee for Relief in 
the Near East, and Food Administration, and that of the mission of 
Mr. Benjamin B. Moore, sent by the peace conference to Transcau- 
casia, as well as the very complete library on the region, its geography, 
history, and governments, loaned by the Librarian of Congress, the 
American Mission to Negotiate Peace, and others. It has listened to 
the personal experiences of many witnesses to the atrocities of 1915, 
and benefited by the views of many persons whose knowledge of the 
various peoples in the regions visited is that obtained by years spent 
among them. 

The interest, the horror, and sympathy of the civilized world are 
so centered on Armenia, and the purpose and work of this mission 
so focus on that blood-soaked region and its tragic remnant of a 
Christian population that this report should seem to fall naturally 
under the following heads: (a) History and present situation of the 
Armenian people; (b) the political situation and suggestions for read- 
justment; (c) the conditions and problems involved in a mandatory; 
(d) the considerations for and against the undertaking of a mandate. 

The report is accordingly so presented. 

THE HISTORY AND PRESENT SITUATION OF ARMENIAN PEOPLE. 

The Armenians were known to history under that name ha the 
fifth century B. C, and since that period have lived in the region 
where their misfortunes find them to-day. Their country is the 
great rough tableland, from 3,000 to 8,000 feet above the level of the 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

sea, of which Mount Ararat is the dominant peak. In ancient times 
it touched the Mediterranean, Caspian, and Black Seas. In later 

days it has dwindled to about 140,000 square miles, an area about 
as large as Montana, without political identity, but existing in 1914 
in two parts, the eastern belonging to Russia, which consisted of Kars 
and Erivan, and some portions of the present territory of Azarbaijan; 
the remainder being Turkish Armenia, comprised in the Villayets of 
Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Diarbekir, Kharput. and Cilicia, though Ar- 
menians were scattered more or less throughout the whole of Trans- 
caucasia and Asia Minor. Armenia was an organized nation 1,000 
yeai's before there was one in Europe, except Greece and Rome. For 
over 12 of the 25 centuries of its history Armenia enjoyed independ- 
ence within borders that shifted with the events of the times. Its 
last king, Leon VI, an exile from his own land, spent his last years 
in the effort to bring about an understanding between France and 
England, then in the struggle of the Hundred Years War, and actu- 
ally presided at a peace conference near Boulogne in 1386, which 
brought about the understanding which led to the end of that war. 
Armenia was evangelized by Apostles fresh from the memory of our 
Lord, as early as 33 A. D., and as a nation adopted Christianity and 
founded a National Church in 301 A. D., which has outridden the 
storms of the centuries, and is vital to-day. Armenia was the first 
nation to officially adopt Christianity, with all that act involved in a 
pagan world. 

The first two centuries following the foundation of the church 
were a golden age of Armenian literature, witnessing the invention 
of an Armenian alphabet; the translation of the Bible into the 
vernacular; the thronging of Armenians to the great centers of 
learning at Athens, Rome, and Alexandria; and the development of 
a flexible literary language, one of the great assets of national life. 

By its geographical location on the great highway of invasion 
from east to west the ambitions of Persia, the Saracens and the 
rising tide of Islam, and the Crusades found Armenia the extreme 
frontier of Christianity in the East. Persians, Parthians, Saracens, 
Tartars, and Turks have exacted more martyrs from the Armenian 
church in proportion to its numbers than have been sacrificed by 
any other race. The last Armenian dynasty was overthrown by the 
Sultan of Egypt 78 years before the fall of Constantinople to Mahomet 
II in 1 453. From that time until to-day the story of their martyrdom 
is unbroken. In the Persian, the Roman, the Byzantine, the Armen- 
ian found Aryan kinsmen and tyranny was tempered with partial 
autonomy. Even the Saracen was a high racial type and reciprocal 
adjustments had been possible. The Turk to whom they now fall 
prey was a raiding nomad from central Asia. His mainsprings of 
action were plunder, murder, and enslavement; his methods the 
scimitar and the bowstring. The Crusades were long ended. Europe 
busy with her own renaissance contented herself with standing on 
the defensive against the Moslem, and the eastern Christian was 
forgotten. For more than three centuries the Armenian people 
figure little in the history of the times, though at an earlier period 
16 Byzantine Emperors were of that race, and ruled the eastern 
Empire with distinction. Many individuals, and -even colonies, 
however, played a part in distant lands. Europe, India, and Persia 
welcomed them. They were translators, bankers, scholars, artisans, 



6 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

artists, and traders, and even under their tyrannical masters filled 
posts which called for administrative ability, became ambassadors and 
ministers, and more than once saved a tottering throne. They 
carried on trades, conducted commerce, and designed and constructed 
palaces. Nevertheless as a race they were forbidden military service, 
taxed to poverty, their property confiscated at pleasure, and their 
women forced into the harems of the conqueror. Such slavery leaves 
some inevitable and unlovable traces upon the character, but in the 
main the Armenian preserved his religion, his language, and his 
racial purity, persecution bringing cohesion. 

Time, temperament and talent eventually brought most of the 
industry, finance, commerce, and much of the intellectual and ad- 
ministrative work of the Ottoman Empire into Armenian hands. 

The progress of events in Europe brought about in the early 
nineteenth century a revival of interest in the forgotten Near East. 
As early as 1744 the treaty of Kainardje had placed Imperial Russia 
in the role of a protector of the Christians of the Near East, an atti- 
tude many times under suspicion by contemporary statesmen, but 
whatever its motives, the only genuine attempt by any European 
nation to afford such protection to helpless Armenia. A plebiscite 
in Russian Armenia, if fairly held, would probably vote a reconsti- 
tuted Russia into a mandatory for that region. 

With Armenian consciousness of their own capacity to trade, to 
administer, and to govern in the name of others, there came in the 
last quarter of the nineteenth century the opportunity to throw their 
weight into the scale for the reform of Turkey from within, at a time 
when the dismemberment of Turkey was balanced in European 
politics against the possibility of her self-redemption. In 1876 a 
constitution for Turkey was drawn up by the Armenian Krikor 
Odian, secretary to Midhat Pasha the reformer, and was proclaimed 
and almost immediateJy revoked by Sultan Abdul Hamid. 

The foregoing inadequately sketches the story of the wrongs of 
Armenia down to our own times. From 1876 it is a story of massacre 
and of broken and violated guaranties. 

The Russo-Turkish War ended in 1877 by the treaty of San Stefano, 
under which Russia was to occupy certain regions until actual reforms 
had taken place in Turkey. This treaty, through British jealousy of 
Russia, was torn up the following year and the futile treaty of Berlin 
substituted, asking protection but without guaranties. Meantime 
there had been the convention of Cyprus, by which that island passed 
to Great Britain, and the protection of Turkey was promised for the 
Armenians in return for Great Britain's agreement to come to the 
aid of Turkey against Russia. A collective note of the powers in 
1880 was ignored by Turkey. Then followed the agreement of 1895, 
which was never carried out, and the restoration of the constitution 
of 1876 in 1908. A further agreement in 1914 was abrogated at the 
entrance of Turkey in the war — and the last of the series is a secret 
treaty of 1916 between Great Britain, France and Russia, the exist- 
ence and publication of which rests on Bolshevik authority, by which 
Armenia was to be divided between Russia and France. Meanwhile 
there have been organized official massacres of the Armenians ordered 
every few years since Abdul Hamid ascended the throne. In 1895, 
100,000 perished. At Van in 1908, and at Adana and elsewhere in 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 7 

Cilicia in 1909, over 30,000 wore murdered. The last and greatest 
of these tragedies was in 1915. Conservative estimates* place the 
number of Armenians in Asiatic Turkey in 1914 over 1,500,000, though 
some make it higher. Massacres and deportations were organized in 
the spring of 1915 under definite system, the soldiers going from town 
to town. The official reports of the Turkish Government show 
1 ,100,000 as having been deported. Young men were first summoned 
to the government building in each village and then marched out and 
killed. The women, the old men, and children were, after a few days, 
deported to what Talaat Pasha called "agricultural colonies," from 
the high, cool, breeze-swept plateau of Armenia to the malarial flats 
of the Euphrates and the burning sands of Syria and Arabia. The 
dead from this wholesale attempt on the race are variously estimated 
from 500,000 to more than a million, the usual figure being about 
SO0.O00. 

Driven on foot under a fierce summer sun, robbed of their clothing 
and such petty articles as they carried, prodded by bayonet if they 
lagged : starvation, typhus, and dysentery left thousands dead by the 
trail side. The ration was a pound of bread every alternate day, 
which many did not receive, and later a small daily sprinkling of 
meal on the palm of the outstretched hand was the only food. Many 
perished from thirst or were killed as they attempted to slake thirst 
at the crossing of running streams. Numbers were murdered by 
savage Kurds, against whom the Turkish soldiery afforded no pro- 
tection. Little girls of 9 or 10 were sold to Kurdish brigands for a 
few piastres, and women were promiscuously violated. At Sivas an 
instance was related of a teacher in the Sivas Teachers' College, a 
gentle, refined Armenian girl, speaking English, knowing music, 
attractive by the standards of any land, who was given in enforced 
marriage to the beg of a neighboring Kurdish village, a filthy, ragged 
ruffian three times her age, with whom she still has to live, and by whom 
she has borne a child. In the orphanage there maintained under 
American relief auspices, there were 150 "brides," being girls, many 
of them of tender age, who had been living as wives in Moslem homes 
and had been rescued. Of the female refugees among some 75,000 
repatriated from Syria and Mesopotamia, we were informed at Aleppo 
that 40 per cent are infected with venereal disease from the lives to 
which they have been forced. The women of this race were free from 
such diseases before the deportation. Mutilation, violation, torture, 
and death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful 
Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from 
the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages. Yet immunity 
from it all might have been purchased for any Armenian girl or comely 
woman by abjuring her religion and turning Moslem. Surely no faith 
has ever been put to harder test or has been cherished at greater cost. 

Even before the war the Armenians were far from being in the 
majority in the region claimed as Turkish Armenia, excepting in a 
few places. To-day we doubt if they would be in the majority in a 
single community even when the last survivors of the massacres and 
deportations have returned to the soil, though the great losses of 
Turkish population to some extent offset the difference brought 
about by slaughter. We estimate that there are probably 270,000 
Armenians to-day in Turkish Armenia. Some 75,000 have been 
repatriated from the Syrian and Mesopotamian side, others are slowly 






8 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 






returning from other regions, and some from one cause or another 
remained in the country. There are in the Transcaucasus probably 
300,000 refugees from Turkish Armenia, and some thousands more in 
other lands, for they have drifted to all parts of the Near East. The 
orphanages seen throughout Turkey and Russian Armenia testify to 
the loss of life among adults. They are Turkish as well as Armenian, 
and the mission has seen thousands of these pathetic little survivors 
of the unhappy years of the war. Reports from 20 stations in 
Turkey show 15,000 orphans receiving American aid, and undoubtedly 
the number demanding care is double this, for many were seen cared 
for under the auspices of the Red Crescent, the organization which in 
Moslem countries corresponds to our Red Cross. Twenty thousand 
are being cared for at the expense of the various relief agencies in the 
Transcaucasus. On. the route traveled by the mission fully 50,000 
orphans are to-day receiving Government or other organized care. 
We estimate a total of perhaps half a million refugee Armenians as 
available to eventually begin life anew in a region about the size of 
New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio,Jto which would be added those, 
not refugees, who might return from other lands. The condition of 
the refugees seen in the Transcaucasus is pitiable to the last degree. 
They subsist on the charity of the American relief organizations 
with some help, not great, however, from their more prosperous 
kinsmen domiciled in that region. Generally they wear the rags 
they have worn for four years. Eighty per cent of them suffer from 
malaria, 10 per cent from venereal troubles, and practically all from 
diseases that flourish on the frontiers of starvation. There are also 
the diseases that accompany filth, loathsome skin troubles, and great 
numbers of sore eyes, the latter especially among the children. The 
hospitals are crowded with such cases. 

The refugees in Russian Armenia have hitherto drifted from place 
to place, but an effort is now being made by the administration of 
Col. Haskell to concentrate them in several refugee camps. The 
winter season will see many deaths, for the winters there are ex- 
tremely severe, fuel is scarce, and shelter inadequate. Medicines 
are scarce and very dear. Quinine cost approximately $30 a pound. 
On the Turkish side of the border where Armenians have returned 
they are gradually recovering their property, and in some cases have 
received rent for it, but generally they find things in ruins, and face 
winter out of touch with the American relief, and with only such 
desultory assistance as the Turkish Government can afford. Things 
are little if any better with the peasant Turks in the same region. 
They are practically serfs equaDy destitute, and equally defenseless 
against the winter. No doctors or medicines are to be had. Vil- 
lages are in ruins, some having been destroyed when the Armenians 
fled or were deported; some during the Russian advance; some on 
the retreat of the Armenian irregulars and Russians after the fall of 
the Empire. Not over 20 per cent of the Turkish peasants who went 
to war have returned. The absence of men between the ages of 20 
and 35 is very noticeable. Six hundred thousand Turkish soldiers 
died of typhus alone, it is stated, and insufficient hospital service 
and absolute poverty of supply greatly swelled the death lists. 

In the region which witnessed the ebb and flow of the Russian and 
Turkish Armies, the physical condition of the country is very deplor- 
able. No crops have been raised for several years and the land 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 9 

ordinarily cultivated has gone to weeds. Scarcely a village or city 
exists which is not largely in ruins. The country is practically 
treeless. 

Where the desperate character of the warfare with its reprisals of 
burning and destroying as one side and then the other advanced, 
has not destroyed the buildings, which are generally of abode, the 
wooden beams have been taken for fuel and the houses are ruined. 
In the territory untouched by war from which Armenians were 
deported the ruined villages are undoubtedly due to Turkish deviltry, 
but where Armenians advanced and retired with the Russians their 
retaliatory cruelties unquestionably rivaled the Turks in their 
inhumanity. The reconstruction of this country vvill be little short 
in difficulty of its original reclamation from virgin wilderness in 
days when trie world was young. 

Where the Russian went he built line macadam highways, and even 
the main Turkish roads generally built during the war, over which our 
mission traveled, were passable, and seme quite good. All highways 
are rapidly going to ruin for lack of maintenance. A country once 
fairly equipped for motor traffic is sliding back to dependence on 
the camel caravan, the diminutive pack donkey, and the rattly, 
ramsnackly araba wagon. The ox is the principal draft animal. A 
good highway existed from Erzerum to Trebizond, on the line of the 
most ancient trade route in the world, that from Persia to the Bhick 
Sea, through which, in all ages, the carpets and jewels of Persia 
have reached the western world. The distance is about 150 miles. 
The freight rale is now between $145 and $150 per ton. V 

In the portion of Turkey traversed we heard of brigandage, but 
experienced no inconvenience. Apparently "the Turkish Government, 
inefficient and wicked as it sometimes is, can control its people, and 
doe-; govern. In the region once policed by Russia the relaxation 
from its iron hand has been great, and life and property are unsafe >/ 
in many regions. Our mission was fired upon by Kurds in Russian 
Armenia and several motor cars struck by bullets, and over half the 
party were kept prisoner one night by Moslems who claimed to have 
been driven from their villages by Armenians. 

In Azarbaijan we were also fired upon. Train wrecks for robbery 
are frequent on the Transcaucasian Railroad, and the Georgian 
Government took the precaution to run pilot engines ahead of our 
train for safety. ' The highways are unsafe even to the suburbs of 
the large towns. Practically every man in Georgia and Azarbaijan, 
outside the cities, carries a rifle. If he desires to stop a traveler on 
the highway he motions or calls to him, and if unheeded fires at him. 

The relief work consists of the allotment made to the Transcaucasus 
from the unexpended balance of the hundred millions appropriated 
by Congress for relief in allied countries, and of the funds contributed / 
through the American Committee for Relief in the Near East. All 
circumstances considered, the relief administration in the Trans- 
caucasus seems to have been conducted with more than average 
energy. It has rescued the refugees there from starvation, and 
brought the. name of America to a height of sympathy and esteem 
it has never before enjoyed in this region. It extends now through- 
out the Near East, and is felt by the wild, ragged Kurd, the plausible 
Georgian, the suspicious Azarbaijan, the able Armenian, and the 



10 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 






grave Turk with equal seriousness. With it or probably because 
of it there has come widespread knowledge of the Fourteen Points 
submitted by the President, and "self-determination" has been 
quoted to the mission by wild Arabs from Shamar and Basra, by 
every Government in Transcaucasia; by the mountaineers of Daghe- 
stan, the dignified and able chiefs of the Turkish Nationalist move- 
ment at Sivas and Erzerum, and the nomad Kurds who 10 minutes 
before had fired at our party thinking us to be Armenians. Un- 
doubtedly some charges of corruption on the part of native officials 
connected with the relief could be substantiated. Charges of par- 
tiality favoring Christian against Moslem in equal distress are not 
infrequent. Due to inexperience, to difficulties of communication 
and other causes there has been inefficiency on the part of American 
officials and employees. Enthusiastic young Americans out of 
touch with the sources of their funds, confronted with the horrors of 
famine in a refugee population, drew drafts on the good faith and 
generosity of their countrymen, procedure not usual in the business 
world, but drafts that were honored nevertheless. Any criticism of 
unbusinesslike methods must be accompanied with the statement of 
work accomplished, which has been very great and very creditable 
to America and her splendid citizens who have so generously con- 
tributed to this cause. Col. Haskell has reorganized the work in the 
Transcaucasus and is getting better results. In some way funds 
must be found and this work must be continued and the people be 
sustained until they can harvest a crop. If seed is available for 
planting, a crop should be due in August, 1920. Even this prospec- 
tive amelioration only applies to those repossessed of their lands. 

There is much to show that, left to themselves, the Turk and the 
Armenian when left without official instigation have hitherto been 
able to live together in peace. Their existence side by side on the 
same soil for five centuries unmistakably indicates their interde- 
pendence and mutual interest. The aged Vali of Erzerum, a man 
old in years and in official experience, informed us that in his youth, 
before massacres began under Abdul Hamid, the Turk and the 
Armenian lived in peace and confidence. The Turk making the 
pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina left his family and 
property with his Armenian neighbor; similarly the Armenian on the 
eve of a journey intrusted his treasures to his Turkish friend. Testi- 
mony is universal that the massacres have always been ordered from 
Constantinople. Some Turkish officials were pointed out to us by 
American missionaries as having refused to carry out the 1915 order 
for deportation. That order is universally attributed to the Com- 
mittee of Union and Progress, of which Enver Bey, Talaat Bey, and 
Djemal Pasha were the leaders. A court has been sitting in the capital 
practically since the armistice, and one man, an unimportant subordi- 
nate, has been hung. Talaat, Enver, and Djemal are at large, and a 
group of men charged with various crimes against the laws of war 
are at Malta in custody of the British, unpunished, except as re- 
strained from personal liberty. Various rumors place Enver Bey as 
scheming in the Transcaucasus, and a French officer is authority for 
the statement that he has been in Tiflis within two months conferring 
with Government officials. This man is in Turkish eyes a heroic 
figure; risen from obscurity by his own efforts, allied by marriage to 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 11 

the Imperial House of Osman, credited with military ability, the 
possibilities of disturbance are very great should he appear in com- 
mand of Moslem irregulars on the Azarbaij an- Armenian frontier. 

Such are conditions to-day in the regions where the remnant of 
the Armenian people exist; roads and lands almost back to the wild: 
starvation only kept off by American relief; villages and towns in 
ruins; brigandage rampant in the Transcaucasus; lack of medicines 
and warm clothing; winter coming on in a treeless land without coal. 
We saw nothing to prove that Armenians who have returned to their 
homes in Turkey are in danger of their lives, but their natural appre- 
hension has been greatly increased by unbalanced advice given by 
■officers on the withdrawal of foreign troops from certain regions. 
The events at Smyrna have undoubtedly cheapened every Christian 
life in Turkey, the landing of the Greeks there being looked upon by 
the Turks as deliberate violation by the Allies of the terms of their 
armistice and the probable forerunner of further unwarranted aggres- 
sion. The moral responsibility for present unrest throughout Turkey 
is very heavy on foreign powers. Meantime, the Armenian, unarmed 
at the time of the deportations and massacres, a brave soldier by 
thousands in the armies of Russia, France, and America during the 
war, is still unarmed in a land where every man but himself carries a 
rifle. 

THE POLITICAL SITUATION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR READJUSTMENT. 

In seeking a remedy for political conditions which shriek of misery, 
ruin, starvation, and all the melancholy aftermath, not only of hon- 
orable warfare, but of beastial brutality unrestrained by God or man, 
but which nevertheless prevail under an existing government with 
which the powers of Europe have long been willing to treat on terms 
of equality, one's first impulse is to inquire as to the possibility of 
reform from within. The machinery of government existing, can it 
be repaired and made a going concern, affording to its people the 
guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which the 
modern world expects of its governments ? The case of the Turkish 
Empire was duly presented to the peace conference in Paris on June 
17 last by the Turkish Grand Vizier, Damad Ferid Pasha, in which 
he admitted for the Turkish Government of the unhappy region 
under consideration, the commission of "misdeeds which are such as 
to make the conscience of mankind shudder with horror forever," 
and that "Asia Minor is to-day nothing but a vast heap of ruins." 
In the reply made b}^ the council of ten of the peace conference, to 
the plea of the Grand Vizier for the life of his Empire, the probability 
■of that Government being able to accomplish reforms from within 
which will satisfy modern requirements and perhaps make amends 
for past crimes, is well weighed in the following words: 

Yet in all these changes there has been no case found either in Europe or in Asia 
or in Africa in which the establishment of Turkish rule in any country has not been 
followed by a diminution of prosperity in that country. Neither is there any case to 
be found in which the withdrawal of Turkish rule has not been followed by material 
prosperity and a rise in culture. Never among the Christians in Europe, nor among 
the Moslems in Syria, Arabia, or Africa has the Turk done other than destroy wherever 
he has conquered. Never has he shown that he is able to develop in peace what he 
has gained in war. Not in this direction do his talents lie. 



y 



12 • CONDITIONS IN" THE NEAK EAST. 

It seems likely, therefore, that as far as the Armenians are con- 
cerned, the Turk has had his day and that further uncontrolled 
opportunity will be denied him. 

With the break-up of Russia the Transcaucasus found itself adrift. 
This Transcaucasian region is ethnographically one of the most com- 
plicated in the world. In all ages it has been one of the great high- 
ways for mankind. Here stragglers and racial remnants have lodged 
during all the centuries that the tides of migration have swept the 
base of the great Caucasus Range, until to-day its small area contains 
five great racial groups, divided into some 40 distinct races. Nine 
of these have arrived in comparatively recent times, but the remaining 
31 are more or less indigenous. There are here 25 purely Caucasian 
races. This racial diversity is complicated by the fact that with the 
exception of the fairly compact group of Georgians, and one of Tartars, 
these peoples are inextricably commingled throughout the region. 
Their civilization varies from the mountain savage to individuals 
of the highest types. Of the 40 distinct races, the most important 
groups are the Georgians, the Azarbaijanese Tartars, and the 
Armenians. 

A Transcaucasian confederation formed by all the peoples in that 
region was followed by an alignment in three small Republics, Georgia, 
Azarbaijan, and Armenia. Georgia is Christian and its Iberian 
population are in the majority; Azarbaijan is Tartar and Moslem; 
Armenia is made up of the former provinces that composed Russian 
Armenia, less the part that went to Azarbaijan in the split, and the 
majority of its people are the blood brothers of the Armenians of 
Turkey in Asia. These republics have been recognized by none of the 
powers except Turkey. The Armenian Republic seeks at the peace 
conference a union with the Turkish Armenians and the creation of an 
Armenian state to include Russian Armenia and the six Turkish Vila- 
yets (Van, Bitlis, Diarbekir, Kharput, Sivas, Erzerum) and Cilicia, to 
be governed by a mandatory of the great powers during a transition 
state of a term of years in which Armenians of the dispersion ma}' 
return to their homes, and a constituent assembly be held to deter- 
mine the form of the eventual permanent Government. Georgia 
and Azarbaijan ask independence at the peace conference with cer- 
tain adjustments of disputed .boundaries in which all Transcaucasia 
is interested. 

Both Georgia and Azarbaijan, living on the salvage from the wreck 
of Russia, have persuaded themselves that the civilization and 
governmental and business machinery they have taken over have 
been theirs from the beginning. The Georgians, with a church of 
their own antedating that of Russia and traditions of a Georgian 
dynasty of Armenian origin which reigned in Tiflis for a thousand 
years before Russia took o^er the country in 1802, are a very proud 
and plausible race. They have been much influenced by the proxim- 
ity of bolshevism, fly the red flag of revolution over their own, and 
have nationalized land, taking it from the original owners without 
compensation, to sell to peasants. This measure has been unsatis- 
factory to both peasant and proprietor. The Azarbaijanese are 
Tartars by blood and Moslem by religion and sympathy. The varied 
topography of their little country and the diversity of its, products 
make them more independent of outside help than either of the other 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 13 

Transcaucasian Republics. Both Georgian and Azarbaijan Govern- 
ments live in terror of the forces of Deniken coming south of the 
Caucasus Mountains. Georgia has her little army on her northern 
frontier; and Azarbaijan has a tacit agreement with Gen. Deniken 
to refrain from hostilities against him in return for immunity from 
attack by his gunboats on the Caspian Sea. 

The Russian Armenians are the blood brothers of those in Turkey , 
and came under Russian domination in 1878. They absorbed many 
Russian manners and customs, and the wealth and ability of the 
race gave them a predominant role in the Transcaucasus under 
Russia. Tiflis, which was the Russian capital, has probably the 
largest Armenian population of any city in the world except New 
York and Constantinople. They are friendly to Deniken and a 
reconstituted Russia, and their refusal to join Georgia and Azar- 
baijan against Deniken caused the break-up of the Transcaucasian 
Federation. 

The dominant civilization in Transcaucasia is Russian. Every- 
thing worth while in the country is due to Russian money and 
Russian enterprise. Besides this common bond, these countries are 
interdependent in the matter of transportation. From Tiflis, the 
capital of Georgia, a railroad runs west to the Black Sea at Batum 
and east to the Caspian Sea at Baku, the capital of Azarbaijan; and 
south to Erivan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia. The road 
is one of system, of the Russian gauge, with the three radii from 
Tiflis, each ending in a different country, somethng like the following: 

Batum Tiflis Baku. 

On Black Sea (Georgia.) On Caspian Sea 

(British military government.) (Azarbaijan) 



Erivan. 
(Inland Armenia.) 



Under Russia the road was, of course, under one management, 
with shops, rollling stock, and policy in common. Georgia now 
controls the shops, Azarbaijan the oil fuel, and each of the three ^ 
such rolling stock as it can get. No one of the three trusts the 
others; no through or continuous traffic is possible without an 
outside power guaranteeing the return of the rolling stock when it 
passes from one jurisdiction to another. Georgia does not hesitate 
to embargo freight against Armenia, and from her position of vantage 
simply censors the railroad traffic to that unfortunate country. 
Azarbaijan controls the fuel supply and combines with Georgia 
against Armenia, which alone of the three has nothing by which to 



14 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAK EAST. 






exert leverage. The railroad can neither be consolidated nor 
properly operated under native control. Roadbed and rolling stock 
are rapidly deteriorating. An example of the power of Georgia over 
Armenia is that the latter is not permitted to import either arms or 
ammunition, though under almost constant menace from its neighbors. 

The three Governments from an occidental standpoint are now 
thoroughly inefficient, without credit, and undoubtedly corrupt. 
Alone each faces inextricable financial difficulties. Religious differ- 
ences, added to racial, threaten to embroil them unless brought 
under a common control. Two of them have no outlet to the Black 
Sea except through Georgia over the railroad. They have no present 
intermonetary, postal, or customs union, and, as stated, no definite 
agreement for common control and use of the railroad, and are hi 
continual squabbles over boundaries. Azarbaijan has no educated 
class capable of well administering a government; Georgia is threat- 
ened by bolshevism; Armenia is in ruins, and partial starvation. All 
our investigation brings conviction that the people in each would 
welcome a mandatory by a trustworthy outside power. Russian 
Armenia would to-day probably vote a mandate to Russia if that 
power were reconstituted. Georgia recalls its ancient independence 
and was never thoroughly reconciled to Russian rule. Azarbaijan, 
Tartar and Moslem, feels a double tie to Turkey and distrusts the 
Christian, but the more intelligent people realize that outside control 
is inevitable and even necessary to their relations with . Christain 
countries and that Turkey is beyond consideration. So closely are 
the countries related geographically, commercially, and by the habit 
of generations that this mission Hot only believes that a mandatory 
is necessary for them, but that it is imperative from the standpoints 
of peace, order, efficiency, and economy that the same power shall 
exercise a mandate over them all, leaving for the present their interior 
boundaries unsettled. The ultimate disposition or form of govern- 
ment of these States, other than that they may look forward to 
autonomy but not necessarily independence, should in our opinion 
not now be . announced. Their capacity for self-government and 
their ability to sustain amicable and workable relations among 
tnemselves remain to be tested under control by such power as may 
be induced to undertake its supervision, facing a long period of 
tutelage for possibly unappreciative and ungrateful pupils, much 
expense, probably diplomatic embarrassment from a reconstitution 
of Russia, and little reward except the consciousness of having con- 
tributed to the peace of the world and the rehabilitation of oppressed 
humanity. 

The covenant of the League of Nations contemplates that " cer- 
tain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire" shall 
be subject to a mandatory power for an unstated period, thus appear- 
ing to recognize in advance the dismemberment to some degree of 
that Empire. (The italic is ours.) This, in connection with the 
arraignment of the Turkish Government in the reply of the peace 
conference, partly quoted on page 15 ante (see page 6), may not unrea- 
sonably be construed to apply to any or all parts of the Turkish 
Empire, as fast as they reach a certain stage of development. As 
between actual dismemberment and a receivership for his entire 
country, the Turk would beyond doubt prefer a mandatory for the 
whole Empire as it may stand after adjudication by the peace confer- 



CONDITIONS TX THE NEAR EAST. 15 

ence. Bad as lie is, without the pale of consideration from many 
standpoints, there would seem to be no objection to action taken in 
his interest and in line with his preference if the interest and inclina- 
tion of the world lie in the same direction. 

A power which should undertake a mandatory for Armenia and 
Transcaucasia without control of the contiguous territory of Asia 
Minor— Anatolia— and of Constantinople, with its hinterland of 
Roumelia, would undertake it under most unfavorable and trying 
conditions, so difficult as to make the cost almost prohibitive, the 
maintenance of law and order and the security of life and property 
uncertain, and ultimate success extremely * doubtful. With the 
Turkish Empire still freely controlling Constantinople, such a power 
would be practically emasculated as far as real power is concerned. 
For generations these peoples have looked to Constantinople as the 
seat of authority. The most intelligent and ambitious Armenians 
have sought the capital as a career. The patriarch of the Armenian 
Church in Constantinople, although subordinate in matters of doc- 
trine to the Catholicos at Etchmiadzin, is in reality the political head 
of the Armenian people by his location in Constantinople. Every 
people in the Empire is numerously represented at the capital, the 
Armenians reaching before the war the number of 150,000, with 
business connections ramifying to distant corners of the entire country. 
To no small degree the future business and industrial development of 
their native land will depend upon these men. Transportation lines 
and commerce center at Constantinople. Before the war Constanti- 
nople was the most important port in Continental Europe, reckoned 
i upon the basis of shipping clearances. There are well-informed busi- 
| ness men who believe it is destined to become the third most important 
I commercial city in the world. But, through generations of habit, 
unless put under a mandatory, Constantinople will continue to be a 
whirlpool of financial and political currents. Concession hunting, 
financial intrigue, political exploitation, and international rivalries 
will center, there in the future as in the past. Concerted international 
action for administration of Constantinople is impracticable. All 
I concerts for governmental action are cumbersome; all concerts must 
have a leader to secure effectiveness, and were it possible to agree 
upon one power which should really lead, the reality of a mandate 
would exist with the handicap of a camouflage concert. In any con- 
cert for the future government of Constantinople there would still 
exist the temptation for single powers to play politics and befriend 
Turkey for value received. There must be actual control, for respon- 
sibility without authority is worse than useless in a land of oriental 
viewpoints. 

As Americans supposed to be disinterested, this mission- was the 
recipient of confidences from the various sources. Turks when not 
deriding foreign efforts were deploring their effect on their unfor- 
tunate Empire. Without dependable centralized control of Con- 
stantinople, a power exercising mandate in Armenia would be crippled 
in administration, restricted in trade development, ridden by con- 
cessionaires, dependent on Turkish discredited diplomacy for redress 
ol local and boundary grievances, and in extreme case practically cut 
off from communication with the western world. It is believed^ that 
allied sentiment is so crystallized in the opinion that Constantinople 



16 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

must be placed under a mandatory that it may safely be assumed 
for the purposes of this report that this will be done. 

Conceded that there shall be a mandate for Armenia and Trans- 
caucasia and one for Constantinople and Anatolia, there are many 
considerations that indicate the desirability of having such mandates 
exercised by the same power. If separate powers exercised such 
mandate the inevitable jealousies, hatreds, exaggerated separatist 
tendencies, and economic difficulties would compel failure. With all 
its faults the Turkish Empire is an existing institution and it has some 
rusty blood-stained political machinery which under control of a 
strong mandatory can be made to function. The peoples in question 
live in adjacent territory and whether they wish it or not are neigh- 
* bors. A single mandatory for the Turkish Empire and the Trans- 
caucasus would be the most economical solution. No intelligent 
/scheme for development of railroads for Transcaucasia and Armenia 
can be worked out without extension into Anatolia. Natural high- 
ways through the high mountains of Armenia are few, and transpor- 
tation development will, with proper feeders, at best be costly and 
difficult; without access into Anatolia it will be impossible. For 
many years the expenses of exploitation will not be met by equivalent 
receipts. This situation would be alleviated by control of both 
regions. With Constantinople, Anatolia, and Armenia in different 
hands, the manufacturers and exporters of Armenia could not hope 
for an equal share in the commerce and trade of the Near East. 

The Armenian Patriarch, the head of the Armenian Protestants, 
and others at Constantinople, on our return from Armenia, called 
and volunteered the belief that the Armenian question could not be 
settled within the boundaries of that country, and that they were 
prepared to pass under a single mandate which should include the 
other parts of the Turkish Empire. In a later written statement, 
however, 1 they modified this, stating that while "Different nations 
of this Empire may enjoy the help of the same mandatory power" 
they felt that to bring Armenia under the same system of adminis- 
tration as that of the Tilrks would defeat the object of the develop- 
ment of Armenian ideals, "because by assuring the individual rights 
of a people the national rights and ideals of the same people can not 
necessarily be assured"; that "Giving a good government to the 
whole Turkish Empire will not induce the Armenians to gather to 
their native land. They will still be a scattered people, etc." 

A party of distinguished Turks, including a former cabinet minister 
of high standing and a diplomat who for eight years represented his 
country at one of the European courts, stated that as between the 
independence of Turkey as it existed in 1914, and a mandate for the 
Empire given to the United States they greatly preferred the latter, 
and believed that they spoke for the educated classes of all Turkey. 

It has been very evident to this mission that Turkey would not 
object to a single disinterested power taking a mandate for her terri- 
tory as outlined in the armistice with the Allies, and that it could 
be accomplished with a minimum of foreign soldiery, where an attempt 
to carve out territory for any particular region would mean a strong 
foreign force in constant occupation for many years. The aim of the 
Nationalist, or National Defense Party, as its adherents style it, as 

1 See Exhibit B, joint letter, Oct. 15, 1919, from Armenian Patriarch, Catholic Armenian Patriarchal 
and the Vekil of Armenian Protestant Community. 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 17 

stated by Mustapha Kemal Pasha, its head, is the preservation of the 
territorial integrity of the Empire under a mandatory of a single dis- 
interested power, preferably America. 

The mission, while at Sivas, had a conference with the chiefs of 
this party, which held a congress at Erzerum in July and one at Sivas 
in September. This movement has been the cause of much appre- 
hension on the part of those interested in the fate of the Armenians, 
to whose safety it has been supposed to portend danger. The leader, 
Mustapha Kemal Pasha, is a former general officer in the Turkish 
Army, who commanded with distinction an army corps at the Dar- 
danelles, and appears to be a young man of force and keen intelli- 
gence. He is supposed to have resigned from the army to lead this 
movement. It sought, as a means to its end, the overthrow of the 
Ferid Pasha cabinet, which has since fallen, claiming that it was 
entirely under the influence of one of the great powers which itself 
desires a mandate for the Empire. While professing entire loyalty 
to the Sultan the Nationalist leader had gone to the extremity of 
cutting all official telegraph communications between the capital 
and the interior, pending the removal of the cabinet. The fall of the 
Damad Ferid Pasha ministry in October would seem to put the Empire 
behind the movement, for the Turkish officials in the interior were 
already identified with it. In a statement given out on October 
15, Mustapha Kemal * said: 

The Nationalist Party recognized the necessity of the aid of an impartial foreign 
country. It is our aim to secure the development of Turkey as she stood at the armi- 
stice. We have no expansionist plans, but it is our conviction that Turkey can be 
made a rich and prosperous country if she can get a good government. Our Gov- 
ernment has become weakened through foreign interference and intrigues. After 
all our experience we are sure that America is the only country able to help us. We 
guarantee no new Turkish violences against the Armenians will take place. 

The events of the Greek occupation of Smyrna and the uneasiness 
produced by the activities and propaganda of certain European 
powers have so stirred the Turkish people in the long interval since 
the armistice that the mission fears that an announcement from 
Paris at this time of an intention to carve from Turkey a State of 
Armenia, unless preceded by a strong military occupation of the 
whole Empire, might be the signal for massacres of Christians in 
every part of the country. There is no wisdom in now incorporat- 
ing Turkish territory in a separate Armenia, no matter what the / 
aspirations of the Armenians. Certainly it is unwise to invite trou- 
ble which may be avoided by the consolidation of the mandate region 
under a single power. Under one mandatory they will be neighbors. 
Under two or more they will be rivals, their small differences sub- 
jected to the interminable processes of diplomatic representation, 
with the maintenance of duplicate and parallel establishments in 
many lines of governmental activity. Only under a single manda- 
tory can the matter of ultimate boundaries be deferred, which is 
believed by this mission to be important. 

In the proposition to carve an independent Armenia from the 
Ottoman Empire there is something to be said on the part of the 

'See Exhibits "C," Statement of Mustapha Kemal Pasha concerning organization, objects, "League 
for the Defense of the Rights of Anatolia and Roumelia"; "D," Gen. Harbord's letter, Oct. 9, 1919, to 
Mustapha Kemal; "E," Declaration of the Congress of Sivas: "F," Resolution of National Congress of 
Sivas addressed to Senate of the United States of America requesting that senatorial committee v'sit and 
investigate conditions within Ottoman Empire. 

S. Doc. 266, 66-2 2 



18 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAK EAST. 

Turk; namely, that his people even when all the refugees shall have 
returned to their homes, will be in the majority in the region con- 
templated for a reconstituted Armenia — and they were in the majority 
before the deportations took place — even though due, as it may be, to 
the gerrymandering of provincial boundaries and the partial extermi- 
nation of a people. Notwithstanding his many estimable qualities, 
his culture, and his tenacity of race and religion, the Armenian 
generally does not endear himself to those of other races with whom 
he comes in contact. The Armenian stands among his neighbors 
very much as the Jew stands in Russia and Poland, having as he does, 
the strong and preeminent ability of that race. He incurs the penalty 
which attaches among backward races to the banker, the middleman, 
and the creditor. Unjust as it may be, the sentiment regarding him 
is expressed by this saying current in the Near East: ' 'The Armenian 
is never legally in the wrong; never morally in the right." Even the 
American missionary, who in so many instances has risked his life 
for his Armenian charges, does not as a rule personally like the 
Armenian as well as he does the more genial but indolent and pleasure- 
loving Turk. "The Armenian is not guiltless of blood himself; his 
memory is long and reprisals are due, and will doubtless be made if 
opportunity offers. Racially allied to the wild Aryan Kurd he is 
cordially hated by the latter. Kurds appealed to this mission with 
tears in their eyes to protect them from Armenians who had driven 
them from their villages, appealing to be allowed to go back to their 
homes for protection against the rigorous winter now rapidly ap- 
proaching on the high interior plateau. The Kurds claim that man} 7- 
of their people were massacred under the most cruel circumstances 
by Armenian irregulars accompanying the Russian Bolshevists when 
the Russian Army went to pieces after the collapse of the empire. 

Similar claim is made by the people of Erzerum, who point to 
burned buildings in which hundreds of Turks perished, and by the 
authorities of Hassan-Kala, who give the number of villages de- 
stroyed by the Armenians in their great plain as 43. According to 
British Consul Stevens, at Batum, these statements were verified by 
a commission which examined into the allegations and on which 
Armenians had a representation. In Baku the massacre of 2,000 
Azarbaijanese by Armenians in March, 1918, was followed by the 
killing of 4,000 Armenians by Azarbaijanese in November of the same 
year. From the standpoint of this mission the capacity of the 
Armenian to govern himself is something to be tested under super- 
vision. With that still in doubt the possibility of an Armenian 
minority being given authority over a Moslem majority against whom 
its hearts are filled with rancor for centuries of tyranny, ma)' well 
justify apprehension. There are very many who believe that the 
best elements of the Armenian race have perished. It is believed 
that with the reestablishment of order in their native country many 
of those who have emigrated to other countries will return. That, 
however, can only come with time, and even then it is doubted if 
many of the wealthy and influential Armenians long domiciled in 
happier lands will return to their somewhat primitive ancient home, 
even though such absentees have raised their voices most loudly for 
an autonomous Armenia. Certainly with arbitrary boundaries on the 
Anatolia side determined only by Armenian wishes, expediency, 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAK EAST. 19 

tradition, or even verified historical claims of former occupation, with- 
out regard to the present population, the mandatory powers for both 
Anatolia and Armenia should inaugurate government by placing a 
cordon of trustworthy foreign soldiers from the Black Sea to the 
Mediterranean. With a single power in control of both peoples and 
boundaries unannounced except as they have hitherto existed, such 
difficulties would not arise. Against such combination of authority 
and postponement of delimitation of boundaries is to be weighed the 
unchangeable belief of many that the Turk at the end of his tutelage 
will still be the Tuck, bloodthirsty, unregenerate, and revengeful, and 
that it is unthinkable that Armenia shall ever again form part of a 
country which may be governed by him; that the sufferings of cen- 
turies should now be terminated by definite and permanent separation 
of Armenia from Turkey, and that this plan seems to contemplate a 
tutelage of indefinite length. To this the reply is that the Armenian 
should have no fear to submit his case to the League of Nations — the 
court of the world— and that he must in the meantime prove his 
capacity not only to govern himself but others, and that at the behest 
of the great powers a plebiscite could be had and the mandatory at 
any time bo terminated by detachment of his territory from Anatolia 
as well as now and with much greater safety to him and convenience 
to iiis benefactors. 

The conclusion of the American military mission to Armenia is 
that the reined}' for the existing conditions in Armenia and the , 
Transcaucasus is a mandatory control to be exercised by a single 
great power. The Armenian question can not be settled in Armenia. 
It can not be finally settled without answering two questions: 

What is to 1)0 done with Turkey '. 

What is Russia going to do? 

Pending the ultimate settlement of these questions the mission 
believes that, for reasons set forth, the power which takes a mandate 
for Armenia should also exercise a mandate for Anatolia, Roumelia, 
Constantinople, and Transcaucasia; the boundaries of the Turkish 
vilayets of Armenia, and Anatolia and the interior boundaries of 
Russian Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan to remain substantially 
as they are for the present. The divisions of such mandate are an 
administrative detail to be worked out by the mandatory power. 
Good administration indicates that there should be some inter- 
mediate authority between the provinces and the capital. A natural 
subdivision of such a mandate as has been indicated would probably 
be: Roumelia, city of Constantinople (federal district), Anatolia, 
Armenia, district of Transcaucasia (less Russian Armenia). 

The inclusion of the whole Turkish Empire under the government 
of a single mandatory would be simpler and proportionately more 
economical than to divide it. A plebiscite fairly taken would in all 
probability ask for an American mandate throughout the Empire 1 . 
Syria and Mesopotamia, however, not being considered essential to 
the settlement of the Armenian question or as being the field for 
possible American responsibilities and interests in the Near East as 
contemplated in the instructions to the mission, because actually 
occupied by France and Great Britain at this time, have been con- 
sidered by us as excluded from our considerations, as is for a similar^ 
reason Arabia. In its belief that the Armenian problem is only to 
be solved by a mandatory which should include also Constantino])!*-, 



29 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

Anatolia, Turkish Armenia, and the Transcaucasus, the mission has 
the concurrence of many Americans whose views by reason of long- 
residence in the Near East are entitled to great weight. Such 
Americans are practically a unit in believing that the problems of 
Armenia, Anatolia, Constantinople, and Transcaucasia must be con- 
sidered as an inseparable whole. 

The mission has a strong conviction that the nation which may be 
induced by its colleagues to undertake this mandate should be one 
prepared to steadfastly carry out a continuity of policy for at least 
a generation, and to send only its most gifted sons to leadership in 
the work without regard to political affiliations. Only on the cer- 
tainty of continuity of a nonpartisan policy would the best men 
forsake their careers in their own country to take up its burdens in 
these eastern lands. No disinterested nation would undertake such 
a mandatory except from a strong sense of altruism and international 
duty to the peace of the world in this breeding place of wars and at 
the unanimous wish of other parties to the covenant of the League of 
Nations. 

No duty of modern times would be undertaken under so fierce a 
glare of publicity. Such nation would hold the center of the inter- 
national stage with the spotlight from every foreign office and from 
every church steeple in the world focussed upon it. No nation could 
afford to fail, or to withdraw when once committed to this most 
serious and difficult problem growing out of the great war. No nation 
incapable of united and nonpartisan action for a long period should 
undertake it. 

THE CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN A MANDATE FOR TURKEY 

AND TRANSCAUCASIA. 

This report has heretofore endeavored to consider the conditions 
and questions of which it treats in the abstract sense applicable to 
any nation which might be induced to assume the task of a practical 
regeneration of this region. Its interest for our country, however, 
lies in the possibility that the United States may be called upon by 
the world to undertake the task, and the necessity therefore of know- 
ing what it would mean for America. The problems for the United 
States would not be identical with those of any other nation which 
might undertake it. A not too sympathetic Old World, without 
pretensions to altruism or too much devotion to ideals, will expect 
of America in the Near East the same lofty standards shown in Cuba 
and the Philippines — the development of peoples rather than of 
material resources and commerce. Distance, our time-honored 
detachment from the affairs of the Old World, our innocence from 
participation in the intrigues which have hitherto characterized 
intercourse with the Turk, our freedom from bias through the neces- 
sity of considering moslem public opinion in other parts of the world, 
and the fact that we have no financial interest in the great foreign 
debt of the Ottoman Empire, give America a viewpoint and an 
advantage in approaching the situation that are enjoyed by no other 
great power. 

A great part of the work of the mission has been devoted to a con- 
sideration of the situation as it would affect our own country should 
it be invited to asume a mandate in the Near East. The problem as 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST 21 

a whole has been kept in mind while individual members of the 
mission have made special inquiry into different matters of which 
knowledge is necessary to reach an intelligent appreciation of the 
difficulties to be solved in this region. Each of these studies con- 
stitutes a unit on the subject with which it deals, too important to 
justify the risk of an attempt at epitomizing for this report. They 
arc therefore submitted as appendices as follows: 

A. Political Factors and Problems, by Capt. Stanley K. Ilornbeek, Ordnance 
Department, United States Army. 

B. Government in Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Lieu f . Col, Jasper Y. Brinton. 
judge advocate, United States Army. 

('. Public and Private Finance of Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Prof. W. W. 
Cumberland. 

D. Commerce and Industry in Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Trade Commissioner 
Eliot Grinnell Mears. 

E. Public Healtb and Sanitation, by Col. Henry Beeuwkes, Medical Corps, United 
States Army. 

F. Population; Industrial and Other Qualities; Maintenance, by Lieut. Col. John 
Price Jackson, Engineers. United States Army. 

G. Climate, Natural Resources, Animal Industry, and Agriculture, by Lieut. Col. 
E. Bowditch, Infantry, United States Army. 

H. Geograpliy, Mining and Boundaries, by Maj. Lawren :e Martin, General Staff. 
United States Army. 

I. The Press of Turkey and Transcaucasia, by Maj. Harold W. Clark, Infantry, 
United States Army. 

J. The Military Problem of a Mandatory, by Brig. Gen. George Van Horn Moseley, 
General Staff, United States Army. 

K. Transport and Communications in Asia Minor and the Transcaucasus, by 
William B. Poland, engineer member of the mission. 

L. Bibliography. 



THE MILITARY PROBLEM. 



V 



Our country has so recently sent its young manhood to war over- 
seas, and the heart of the Nation is so sensitive to any enterprise 
which calls for its sons to serve as soldiers in distant lands, that the 
greatest interest attaches to the military problem involved in any 
mandate to which our people may ever give consideration. 

The immediate problems which would lie before the Army and Navy 
of a mandatory power in Turkey and Transcaucasia are: 

(a) The suppression of any disorder attendant upon withdrawal of 
occupying troops and the initiation of the government. 

(b) The maintenance of order until a constabulary could be or- 
ganized for the rural police of the mandatory region. 

(c) To help organize and train a native constabulary. 

(d) To constitute a reserve for moral effect; for possible actual use 
in supplementing the local constabulary in case of emergency; and 
for the prestige of the mandatory government in a region which has 
been governed by force since the beginning of history. 

The inauguration of a mandatory government would be followed 
at a very early date by the withdrawal of the foreign troops now 
occupying the region and by the dissolution, as soon as practicable, 
of the permanent military establishments now maintained by Turkey 
and Transcaucasia. The United States accepting the mandate at 
the request of the other great powers and of the peoples interested, 
no resistance to her troops would be anticipated. On the contrary, 
they would doubtless be welcomed. No problem of external defense 
of the countiy occupied would exist. 



22 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

(a) The present occupying force of the region under consideration, 
Roumelia, Constantinople, Anatolia, and Transcaucasia, excluding five 
Greek divisions occupying Smyrna, is the Army of the Black Sea and 
the troops in Cilicia, comprising about 50,000 of the British, French, 
Italian, and Greek Governments. The regular troops of Turkey and 
Transcaucasia to be disbanded in the same region at the convenience 
of the mandatory government aggregate about 92,000 men. The 
gendarmerie of Turkey amounts to about 30,000 men. The loss of 
man power in Turkey has been appalling, and too many men are still 
absent from work and carrying rifles. 

It is not thought that any serious disorder would attend this substi- 
tution of the troops of the mandatory power for the army of occupa- 
tion and for the native regular forces. 

(b) During the formation of an efficient native constabulary, a 
period of six months to a year, small garrisons would have to be fur- 
nished along the railroads and in isolated towns, especially on the old 
frontiers, where feeling runs high between races. This would give 
security while the various nationals are being repatriated, reconstruc- 
ting their homes, and adjusting themselves to new conditions. The 
suppression of outlaw bands, which already exist in some localities, 
and the formation of which in eastern countries invariably follows the 
disbandment of armies after a long war, would call for constant use 
of a certain number of United States troops pending the completion 
of the constabulary organization for service. During this period the 
disarmament of the civilian population would be accomplished. 

(c) The first duty of a mandatory would be to guarantee the safety 
of life and property through the country, and to this end its earliest 
efforts should be directed to the establishment of a native rural police 
or constabulary for the suppression of brigandage, outlawry, and other 
crimes outside the towns. This force, with a military organization, 
should be a force of peace officers as that term is used in our own 
country, empowered to make arrests of criminals of all kinds, .serve 
warrants, execute orders of arrest, etc. While decentralized in its 
administration, and destined eventually to operate in small bodies, 
it should be a Federal force, cooperating with but not serving under 
provincial officials. Its personnel should absorb the best elements 
of the present gendarmerie, and also provide suitable employment 
for deserving officers of the disbanded armies. For a considerable 
period its highest officers would necessarily be Americans, but as fast 
as the quality of the native officers justifies, the force should become 
native. The strength of the constabulary should be such as to enable 
it to take over the whole task of maintaining order outside the towns 
and release American troops at the earliest practicable date. Coinci- 
dent with the organization of the constabulary would be the creation 
of efficient municipal police. 

(d) Considering the uncertain character of the neighboring popu- 
lations, the traditional lawlessness of migratory Kurds and Arabs, 
and the isolation of certain regions where the temptation to reprisals 
for past wrongs will be strong for at least a generation, a certain force 
must be kept in hand to supplement the native constabulary when 
needed. Such a force will also be necessary for general moral effect. 
Its mere existence will prevent organized disorder on a scale too large 
for a peace force to handle. Such a force would be stationed near 






CONDITION'S IN" THE NEAR EAST. 23 

the capita], trained for quick expeditionary work, and sent where 
needed. 

The character of the troops should be suited to the purpose for r 
which used. For expeditionary purposes, marines or infantry with 
artillery would be best. For moral effect in the interior and during 
the period of constabulary, organization cavalry would be preferable. 
A small efficient air service should be maintained. The aeroplane is 
not only a means of very rapid communication, but its value for deal- 
ing with a distant small problem among half-wild tribes can not be 
overestimated. The country much resembles Mexico, and the con- 
ditions would be not unlike our border cavalry service. A regiment 
of railway engineers would be a necessity. During the initial period 
of the mandatory, troops would be needed in connection with the 
general problem of sanitation and cleaning up, and an extra propor- * 

tion of sanitary troops would be ncccssary^^. ■ . ■ /^4 

Estimates of the necessary immjbei*^OT mandatory troops vary 
greatly — from 25,000 to 200,000. i<t\)nditions change so rapidly that 
plans made to-day for the use of troops might be obsolete in six 
months. Uncertainty as to the time the mandate will be tendered 
and accepted make estimates merely approximate. Under conditions 
as they exist to-day the undersigned believes that a force of two 
American divisions, with several hundred extra officers, or a total 
force of 59,000 would be ample. Such force w T ould be specially or- 
ganized; one aeroplane squadron; a minimum of artillery; not to ex- 
ceed one regiment of 75 's motorized; a minimum of the special serv- 
ices; four times the usual number of sanitary troops; four regiments 
of cavalry, with minor changes in organization at the discretion of the 
senior general officer on duty with the mandatory government. This 
force should be substantially reduced at the end of two years, and by 
50 per cent at the end of the third year. After that some further 
reduction could be slowly effected, but the irreducible minimum 
would be reached at about the strength of one division. 

The annual cost for the force of the army above stated would be 
at the maximum: 

For the first year $88, 500, 000 

A.t the end of two vears perhaps 59, 000, 000 

At the end of thiee years 44. 250. 000 

with thereafter a continuing appropriation of that sum less such 
amount as the local revenues could afford, probably a very substan- 
tial fraction of the cost. 

To offset our expenditures there would be available at least a part 
of the naval and military budget hitherto used for the support of the 
disbanded armies in the region. In Turkey before the war this 
totaled about $61,000,000 annually for the army, including $5,000,000 
for the navy. 

The naval establishment should consist of a station ship for the 
capital, and probably one each for Smyrna, Mersina, Batum, and 
Baku, to meet local needs in quick transportation of troops, A 
transport of light draft capable of carrying a complete regiment 
should be permanently on station at the capital. Four to six 
destroyers would be needed for communication and moral effect. 
Collier, repair, and hospital service afloat should be in proportion. 
Old ships of obsolete type would probably answer for all except the 
station ship at the capital and the destroyers. Some ships of the 



24 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

Turkish Navy, of which there are over 30, could doubtless be used 
with American crews soon to be replaced by natives. 

The naval establishment might not entail any additional Federal 
appropriations. Ships and personnel could probably be drawn from 
existing establishment; the only additional expense would probably 
be the difference in cost of maintenance in near eastern and home 
waters. 

It is very important that a proper military and naval setting be 
given the mandatory government at the begimiing. In no part of 
the world is prestige so important, and in no region have people been 
so continuously governed by force. The mandatory could at the 
outset afford to take no unnecessary risks among such a population 
in densest ignorance as to our resources and our national traits. 

CONCLUSIONS. 

This mission has had constantly in mind the moral effect to be 
exercised by its inquiry in the region visited. Very alarming reports 
had been received from Transcaucasia for several months before its 
departure from France, particularly as to organized attacks by the 
Turkish Army impending along the old international border between 
Turkey and Russia. The itinerary of the mission through Turkey 
was planned with those reports before it and with the intention of 
observing as to their truth and if possible to exert a restraining 
influence. We practically covered the frontier of Turkey from the 
Black Sea to Persia, and found nothing to justify the reports. The 
Turkish Army is not massed along the border; their organizations are 
reduced to skeletons; and the country shows an appalling lack of 
people, either military or civilian. At every principal town through 
which we passed the chief of the mission held a conference with the 
Turkish officials. Inquiry was made as to the Christian Community, 
some were always interviewed; the interest of America in its own 
missionaries and in the native Christians was invariably emphasized; 
the Armenian deportations, the massacres, and the return of the 
survivors were discussed on each occasion, as well as other matters 
intended to convince Turkish officials that their country is on trial 
before the world. The visit of the mission has had a considerable 
moral effect in securing the safety of Christian lives and property 
pending action by the peace conference. 

We would again point out that if America accepts a mandate for 
the region visited by this mission, it will uadoubtedly do so from a 
strong sense of international duty, and at the unanimous desire — 
so expressed at least — of its colleagues in the League of Nations. 
Accepting this difficult task without previously securing the assurance 
of conditions would be fatal to success. The United States should 
make its own conditions as a preliminary to consideration of the 
subject — certainly before and not after acceptance, for there are a 
multitude of interests that will conflict with what any American 
would consider a proper administration of the country. Every 
possible precaution against international complications should be 
taken in advance. In our opinion there should be specific pledges in 
terms of formal agreements with France and England and definite 
approval from Germany and Russia of the dispositions made of 
Turkey and Transcaucasia, and a pledge to respect them. 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 25 

Of particular importance are the following: 

Absolute control of the foreign relations of the Turkish Empire, 
no ambassador, envoy, minister, or diplomatic agent to be accredited 
to Turkey, and the latter to send none such abroad. 

Concessions involving exclusive privileges to be subject to review 
if shown to be contrary to the best interests of the State. 

Concessions undesirable from the standpoint of the mandatory 
upon which work has not been started to be canceled. Compensation 
to be allowed to holders when necessar}^. 

The system by which specified revenues are assigned for particular 
purposes to be discarded. All revenues to be controlled by the 
treasury, and all creditors to look only to the treasury as the source 
of payment. 

Foreign control over Turkey's financial machinery to cease, mean- 
ing the dissolution of the council of administration of the Ottoman 
public debt, reserving the right to retain some individual members of 
the council as advisors because of their familiarity with Ottoman 
finances. 

All foreign obligations of the Empire to be unified and refunded. 

Those countries receiving territory of the Turkish Empire, e. g., 
Syria and Mesopotamia, to assume their reasonable share of the paper 
currency, of the foreign obligations, and of obligation for possible 
reparation payments. 

Abrogation, on due notice, of existing commercial treaties with 
Turkey. 

All foreign Governments and troops to vacate territorial limits of 
mandate at dates to be fixed by the mandatory power. 

Consent to many of these measures would not easily be obtained. 
Many nations now have some sort of financial control within the 
Ottoman Empire, and they would not see this control taken away 
without protest. 

It needs no argument, however, to show that the United States 
could not submit to having her financial policies controlled from 
foreign capitals. The refunding of the debt, possibly with a reduc- 
tion of the capital amount, would raise a storm of protest, but it 
should be insisted upon. Otherwise an American administration 
would be embarrassed and run the risk of being discredited. 

The mission has not felt that it is expected to submit a recom- 
mendation as to the United States accepting a mandate in the Near 
East. It, therefore, simply submits the following summary of rea- 
sons for and against such action, based on all information obtainable 
during six weeks constant contact with the peoples of the region : 

REASONS FOR. REASONS AGAINST. 

1. As one of the chief contributors to 1. The United States has prior and 
the formation of the League of Nations, nearer foreign obligations, and ample 
the United states is morally bound to responsibilities with domestic problems 
accept the obligations and responsibili- growing out of the war. 

ties of a mandatory power. 

2. The insurance of world peace at the 2. This region has been a battle ground 
world's cross-ways, the focus of war infec- of militarism and imperialism for cen- 
tion since the beginning of history. turies. There is every likelihood that 

ambitious nations will still maneuver for 
its control. It would weaken our position 
relative to Monroe doctrine and probably 
eventually involve us with a reconsti- 



26 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 



3. The Near East presents the greatest 
humanitarian opportunity of the age— 
a duty for which the United States is 
better fitted than any other — -as witness 
Cuba, Porto Rico, Philippines, Hawaii, 
Panama, and our altruistic policy of de- 
veloping peoples rather than material 
resources alone. 

4. America is practically the unani- 
mous choice and fervent hope of all the 
peoples involved . 



5. America is already spending mil- 
lions .to save starving peoples in Turkey 
and Transcaucasia and could do this with 
much more efficiency if in control . Who- 
ever becomes mandatory for these regions 
we shall be still expected to finance their 
relief, and will probably eventually fur- 
nish the capital for material development. 

6. America is the only hope of the Ar- 
menians. They consider but one other 
nation, Great Britain, which they fear 
would sacrifice their interests to Moslem 
public opinion as long as she controls hun- 
dreds of millions of that faith. Others 
fear Britain's imperialistic policy and her 
habit of staying where she hoists her flag. 

For a mandatory America is not only 
the first choice of all the peoples of the 
Near East, but of each of the great powers, 
after itself. 

American power is adequate; its record 
clean; its motives above suspicion. 

7. The mandatory would be self-sup- 
porting after an initial period of not to 
exceed five years. The building of rail- 
roads would offer opportunities to our 
capital. There would be great trade ad- 
vantages not only in the mandatory re- 
gion, but in the proximity to Russia, 
Roumania, etc. 

America would clean this hotbed of dis- 
ease and filth as she has in Cuba and 
Panama. 



8. Intervention would be a liberal edu- 
cation for our people in world politics; 
give outlet to a vast amount of spirit and 
energy and would furnish a shining ex- 
ample. 



tuted Russia. The taking of a mandate 
in this region would bring the United 
States into the politics of the Old World, 
contrary to our traditional policy of 
keeping free of affairs in the Eastern 
Hemisphere. 

3. Humanitarianism should begin at 
home. There is a sufficient number of 
difficult situations which call for our 
action within the well-recognized spheres 
of American influence. 



4. The United States has in no way 
contributed to and is not responsible for 
the conditions, political, social, or eco- 
nomic, that prevail in this region. It 
will be entirely consistent to decline the 
invitation. 

5. American philanthropy and charity 
are world wide. Such policy would com- 
mit us to a policy of meddling or draw 
upon our philanthropy to the point of 
exhaustion. 



6. Other powers, particularly Great 
Britain and Russia, have shown con- 
tinued interest in the welfare of Armenia. 
Great Britain is fitted by experience and 
government, has great resources in money 
and trained personnel, and though she 
might not be as sympathetic to Armenian 
aspirations, her rule would guarantee 
security and justice. 

The United States is not capable of sus- 
taining a continuity of foreign policy. 
One Congress can not bind another. 
Even treaties can be nullified by cutting 
off appropriations. Nonpartisanship is 
difficult to attain in our Government. 

7. Our country would be put to great 
expense, involving probably an increase 
of the Army and Navy. Large numbers 
of Americans would serve in a country of 
loathsome and dangerous diseases. It is 
questionable if railroads could for many 
years pay interest on investments in their 
very difficult construction. Capital for 
railways would not go there except on 
Government guaranty. 

The effort and money spent would get 
us more trade in nearer lands than we 
could hope for in Russia and Roumania. 

Proximity and competition would in- 
crease the possibility of our becoming in- 
volved in conflict with the policies and 
ambitions of states which now our friends 
would be made our rivals. 

8. Our spirit and energy can find scope 
in domestic enterprises, or in lands south 
and west of ours. Intervention in the 
Near East would rob us of the strategic 
advantage enjoyed through the Atlantic 
which rolls between us and probable foes. 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 



9. It would definitely stop further 
massacres of Armenians and other Chris- 
tians, give justice to the Turks, Kurds, 
Greeks, and other peoples. 

10. It would increase the strength and 
prestige of the United States abroad and 
inspire interest at home in the regenera- 
tion of the Near East. 



11. America has strong sentimental 
interests in the region; our missions and 
colleges. 



12. If the United States does not take 
responsibility in this region, it is likely 
that international jealousies will result in 
a continuance of the unspeakable misrule 
of the Turk. 



13. "And the Lord said unto Cain, 
Where is Abel thy brother? And he 
said' 'I know not; am I my brother's 
keeper?"' 

Better millions for a mandate than 
billions for future wars. 



Our reputation for fair dealing might be 
impaired. Efficient supervision of a 
mandate at such distance would be diffi- 
cult or impossible. We do not need or 
wish further education in world politics. 

9. Peace and justice would be equally 
assured under any other of the great 
powers. 

10. It would weaken and dissipate our 
strength which should be reserved for 
future responsibilities on the American 
continents and in the Far East. Our line 
of communication to Constantinople 
would be at the mercy of other naval 
powers, and especially of Great Britain, 
with Gibraltar and Malta, etc., on the 
route. 

11. These institutions have been re- 
spected even by the Turks throughout 
the war and the massacres ; and sympathy 
and respect would be shown by any 
other mandatory. 

12. The peace conference has definitely 
informed the Turkish Government that 
it may expect to go under a mandate. It 
is not conceivable that the League of 
Nations would permit further uncon- 
trolled rule by that thoroughly discred- 
ited government. 

13. The first duty of America is to its 
own people and its nearer neighbors. 

Our country would be involved in this 
adventure for at least a generation and in 
counting the cost Congress must be pre- 
pared to advance some such sums, less 
such amount as the Turkish and Trans- 
caucasian revenues could afford, for the 
first five years, as follows: 



FIRST YEAR. 

General government. $100, 000, 000 

Communications, railroads, 

etc 20, 000, 000 

Relief, repatriation, educa- 
tion, etc 50, 000, 000 

Army and Navv 88, 500, 000 

Sanitation 17, 000, 000 

Total 275, 000, 000 

SECOND YEAR. 

General government 75, 000, 000 

( 'ommunications, railroads, 

etc 20. 000, 000 

Relief, education, etc 13, 000, 000 

Army and navy 59, 000, 000 

Sanitation, etc". 7, 264, 000 

Total 174,264,000 

THIRD YEAR. 

General government 50, 000, 000 

Communications, railroads, 

etc 20,000,000 



28 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

third year — continued. 






Relief, education, etc $4, 500, 000 

Army and navy 44, 250, 000 

Sanitation, etc 5, 000, 000 



Total '. 123, 750, 000 



FOURTH YEAR. 

General government 

Communications, railroads, 

etc 

Relief, education, etc 

Army and navy 

Sanitation, etc 



25, 000, 000 

20, 000, 000 
4, 500, 000 

44, 250, 000 
3, 000, 000 



Total 96,750,000 



FIFTH YEAR. 

General government 15, 000. 000 

Communications, railroads, 

etc 20, 000. 000 

Relief, education, etc 4, 500, 000 

Army and navy 44, 250, 000 

Samtation, etc 2, 000, 000 

Total 85,750,000 



SUMMARY. 



Total first year 275, 500, 000 

Total second year «... 174, 264, 000 

Total third year 123, 750, 000 

Total fourth year 96, 750, 000 

Total fifth year 85, 750, 000 



Grand total 756, 014, 000 

14. Here is a man's job that the world 
says can be better done by America than 
by any other. America can afford the 
money; she has the nun; no duty to her 
oun people would suffer; her traditional 
policy of isolation did not keep her from 
successful participation in the Great 
vVar. Shall it be said that our country 
lacks the courage to take up new and 
difficult duties? 

Without visiting the Near East it is not possible for an American 
to realize even faintly the respect, faith, and affection with which 
our country is regarded throughout that region. Whether it is the 
world-wide reputation which we enjoy for fair dealing, a tribute per- 
haps to the crusading spirit which carried us into the Great War, 
not untinged with hope that the same spirit may urge us into the 
solution of great problems growing out of that conflict, or whether 
due to unselfish and impartial missionary and educational influence 
exerted for a century, it is the one faith which is held alike by Chris- 
tian and Moslem, by Jew and Gentile, by prince and peasant in the 
Near East. It is very gratifying to the pride of Americans far from 
home. But it brings with it the heavy responsibility of deciding 
great questions with a seriousness worthy of such faith. Burdens 
that might be assumed on the appeal of such sentiment would have 



CONDITION'S IN THE NEAR EAST. 29 

to be carried for not less than a generation under circumstances so 
trying that we might easily forfeit the faith of the world. If we 
refuse to assume it, for no matter what reasons satisfactory to our- 
selves, we shall be considered by many millions of people as having 
left unfinished the task for which we entered the war, and as having 
betrayed their hopes. 
Respectfully submitted. 

James G. Harboed, 
Major General, United States Army, Chief of Mission . 

Note.- — The mission is indebted for assistance to the American high commissioner, 
Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol. United .Slates Navy, and to Consul General G. B. 
Ravndal at Constantinople, to American Consuls Jackson at Aleppo, and Doolittle 
at Tiflis, as well as to the allied high commissioner to Armenia, Col. W. N. Haskell, 
United States Army. Acknowledgments are also made to Dr. Mary Mills Patrick, 
president of the Woman's College of Constantinople; to the authorities of Robert Col- 
lege, particularly Prof. Hussein Bey; and to Messrs. Barton, Chambers, Christie, 
Riggs, Partridge, Prof. Robert P. Blake, of National University, Mr. Benjamin Burgess 
Moore, chief American political intelligence mission to the Transcaucasus, Tiflis, 
and Misses Graffam and Fenanga, as well as to various other representatives of the 
American committee for relief in the Near East, and of the several missionary centers. 
All of these devoted missionaries have passed years of exile in this country, offering 
their lives for its betterment, and have the high respect of not only the people among 
whom they live, but of the various foreign representatives to whom they are known. 
American missions and schools have for 100 years produced striking and far- 
reaching results in Asiatic Turkey, and are a credit to our country. The mission is 
also under obligation to government officials in all the countries visited, from whom 
it has received nothing but courteous assistance in ds work. 



Exhibit C. 



CONDENSED MEMORANDUM CONCERNING THE ORGANIZATION AND 
POINTS OF VIEW OF THE LEAGUE FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE RIGHTS 
OF ANATOLIA AND ROUMELIA. 

I. Our league was not in existence when the Sublime Porte signed 
the armistice of September 30, 1919. 

After the conclusion of this convention on the basis of the principle 
of nationalities as formulated by President Wilson, our nation firmly 
entertained the hope that it would obtain a just peace and was eagerly 
looking forward to such a consummation. As a matter of fact, the 
carrying out of the armistice gave arbitrarily rise on the part of the 
Entente Powers to daily increasing transgressions and violations of 
its clauses. 

The non-Moslem elements with which we have led a joint existence 
ab antique, encouraged by the favor shown to them by the Entente 
Powers, broke into open attacks on the dignity and rights of the 
nation and State. 

Constantinople, the seat of the caliphate and throne, was occupied 
by the forces of the Entente Powers in a brutal and oppressive form. 
The police and the gendarmerie having been placed under the control 
of the occupying powers. This constituted a de facto interference 
with the administration of the capital and the independence of the 
country. 

The regions of Adana and Adalia were occupied right up to Koniah. 
The cession of Smyrna and the surrounding territory as well as of 



30 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

Thrace to Greece and the creation of an extensive Armenian State in- 
eastern Anatolia on the one hand, and of a Republic of the Pontus 
along the Black Sea shore of the Empire on the other hand, began to 
be seriously discussed. 

It was natural, under these circumstances, that the Turkish nation 
should feel deeply affected by these operations directed against the 
integrity of its territory and independence as well as against its dig- 
nity and other legitimate rights. 

On the other hand, the Chamber of Deputies, in session at Con- 
stantinople, having been dissolved, the cabinets which came to power 
in succession and were composed of incapable individuals did not 
derive their authority from the national forces and escaped the con- 
trol of the representatives of the nation. Presently it was realized 
that these cabinets were not only lacking in the necessary qualities 
for defending the rights and dignity of the nation, but that they 
actually lent themselves to the satisfaction of the ambitions of the 
foreign powers, principally England, in whose hands they had become 
simple toys. 

Thus it came to pass that the nation, which began to feel seriously 
concerned about its existence, felt the necessity of manifesting 
directly its power and administrative action by its personal inter- 
vention. 

As a consequence, national organizations sprang up spontaneously 
in every part of the country. 

Of these national organizations the following are the principal: The 
Erzeroum Association for the Defense of the Fatherland; the Diar- 
bekir Association for the Defense of the Fatherland; The Cilicia Asso- 
ciation for the Defense of National Rights ; The Smyrna Association 
for the Defense of National Rights (this association latterly assumed 
the name of "Association for Defending the National Rights and Pre- 
venting Cession of Territory") ; The Thrace and Pasha Hi Association 
(this association having combined with the associations of Western 
Thrace adopted the general denomination of "Association of Thrace") 
A number of associations were also formed in Constantinople, of which 
the National Unity Association is the principal. 

These associations have no connection whatsoever with the 
existing political parties or those in course of formation. On the 
contrary, they are entirely free from all political ambition and owe 
their existence exclusively to the common aim of safeguarding the 
territorial integrity and other rights of the Nation and State. They 
are all acting under the same influences and causes. 

II. It was while these associations formed throughout the country 
were busy extending their organization in a perfectly orderly and 
peaceful manner — they were looking forward with confidence to the 
assertion of the principles of right and justice — that the Greeks 
occupied Smyrna and the environing country under the patronage of 
the Entente Powers and committed on this occasion untold atrocities. 
The Greek troops and the local Greeks who had joined them in arms 
started a general massacre of the Mussulmen population in which the 
officials and Ottoman officers and soldiers as well as the peaceful 
inhabitants were indiscriminately put to death and subjected to 
forms of torture and savagery worthy of the Inquisition and con- 
stituting in any case a barbarous violation of the laws of humanity. 






CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 31 

Naturally the outcry was great" among the Mussulmen population. 
It appealed for help. The voice thus raised by the innocent and 
tormented Mussulmen of Smyrna reverberated throughout the land. 
The whole nation rose as one man to oppose the barbarously hostile 
action of the Greeks. Meetings were organized in the towns and even 
in the villages and telegrams dispatched by the hundred to the 
Entente Powers and the whole civilized world, tearfully appealing for 
protection and help. These solicitations of a whole people for a 
reversion to the laws of humanity and justice remained unheard. On 
the contrary the Greeks extended the zone of their operations to the 
continued accompaniment of their first atrocities. In Constantinople 
the oppressive measures of the English acting in conjunction with the 
Central Government took a severer form. The Italian forces in 
Adalia were increased. In Cilicia the Mussulmen population con- 
tinued to be subjected to insult and outrage and reenforced measures 
were adopted for the suppression of Turkish authority. The Greek 
bands whose activity was directed from Constantinople and Smyrna 
indulged in increased outrages at the expense of the Mussulmen 
element. 

At this juncture the Ferid Pasha cabinet, which in no wise repre- 
sents the feelings and wishes of the nation, was invited to send a dele- 
gation to Paris. The treatment with which our delegates met at the 
congress was only another instance added to so many others of the 
offensive attitude so easily adopted toward Turkey. 

III. The nation, realizing that salvation resided in the formation of 
a general and joint organization acting in perfect unity. The popu- 
lation of Trcbizond and Erzeroum took steps in June, 1919, in view of 
the convocation of a congress in the latter town which was to bring 
about the unification of the eastern vilayets. At the same time a 
resolution was adopted at Amassia fevr the meeting of a congress at 
Sivas for the unification of the whole of Anatolia and Roumelia. 

On the 23d of Jul}', 1919, the first of the intended congresses met at 
Erzeroum. It was composed of the elected representatives of all the 
vilayets, subprefectures, and cazas of eastern Anatolia. It remained 
in session 15 days. (The proclamation embodying its essential reso- 
lutions, system of organization, aims, and points of view is in principle 
the same as that of the congress that followed at Sivas and is annexed 
in the Turkish original to this memorandum.) 

On the fourth of September 1919, the second Congress met at Sivas. 
It was composed of the elected representatives of western Anatolia 
and Roumelia and, acting in the name of eastern Anatolia, a body of 
fully empowered delegates elected by the Congress of Erzeroum. 
The latter Congress having already established the principal basis 
of action of the national movement, the Sivas Congress completed 
its deliberations and adopted its resolutions in the course of a week. 
(These resolutions as mentioned above are annexed to the present 
memorandum.) 

At this general Congress it was once more established that all those 
parts of the Empire which were under Turkish authority at the time 
of the conclusion of the armistice between the Sublime Porte and the 
Entente Powers formed one joint block of territory and that our 
compatriots of the same faith formed a united body pursuing one 
aim in perfect unison. This Congress took the name of "League for 
the Defense of the Rights of Anatolia and Roumelia." In this 



32 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

fashion the whole nation and the Ottoman Army which is recruited 
from among the sons of the nation and whose primary duty is the 
defense of the Fatherland form the sources of our strength. 

A "committee of representatives" was elected with powers to pur- 
sue the common end and to administer the affairs of the organization. 

IV. As shown in the annexed regulations, the foremost object of 
our league is, on the one hand, to constitute the national forces into 
a factor for the maintenance of the territorial integrity of the Ottoman 
Fatherland within the borders already mentioned and for the defense 
of the national independence and the rights of the caliphate and 
throne and, on the other hand, to establish the supremacy of the 
national will. 

Concerning our non-Moslem compatriots with whom we have lived 
together for such a long time (Armenians, Greeks, Jews, etc.) we have 
no other point of view or feeling than to be sincerely animated with 
the best intentions toward them and to consider them entitled to 
perfect equality with ourselves. We are absolutely certain that if 
the country is freed from the evil influences and suggestions which 
have been at work in its midst so far, the different races of the Empire 
will live in peace with one another and lead., in common, a happy and 
prosperous life. 

The high and pure aims which are ours exclude all aggressive in- 
tentions against the Entente Powers. It will be natural and inevitable 
for us, however, to defend ourselves and retaliate in answer to attacks 
in a material form upon our existence in violation of the laws of 
justice and humanity. 

V. It is to be deplored that whereas the nature of our aims was to 
be gathered from our explanations as well as from our acts, a number 
of evil-minded and malevolent individuals, starting a campaign of 
misrepresentation and false rumors, sought to attribute to our 
intentions forms which never crossed our minds and had no con- 
nection whatever with truth. In this respect, those who went furthest 
are the English and the Ferid Pasha cabinet which, as already stated, 
is but a tool in their hands. 

Ferid Pasha and his colleagues are convinced that they could 
not enjoy any authority whatsoever if the administration was run 
on constitutional and liberal lines and rested on the national 
forces. That is why, the nation, having given proof of its ma- 
turity and shown its general capability as well as its consciousness 
of its civil and natural rights, the only concern of this cabinet is to 
crush the national organization and its action. In this campaign 
one of its weapons is the fear of the unionists, those unionists who 
gained such unenviable notoriety the world over by their misrule 
lasting several years to the great detriment of the nation and by 
their last crime which was to plunge the country into an abyss from 
which it is experiencing such difficulty in extricating itself. Specu- 
lating on this fear the present cabinet is fatuously seeking to dis- 
credit our action which is free from every kind of self-seeking ambi- 
tion and is pursuing thoroughly national aims by representing these 
as being connected with unionism. Another weapon to which the 
cabinet clings is the fear of bolshevism. In the official communica- 
tions they are striving to get through to the provincial governors, 
they are not ashamed to assert that the Bolshevists have entered 
Anatolia and that all our activities are inspired by them. 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 33 

As a matter of fact we realize and estimate the painful conse- 
quences to which unionism has led the nation much better than 
Ferid Pasha and his likes. Our object, so far from being to deal the 
last blow to the existence of our fatherland and nation by launching 
upon adventures, is to proceed with the greatest discrimination and 
forethought and to find the means for insuring their survival and 
welfare. Consequently there can be no relationship between us and 
the unionists. 

As to the Bolshevists, there is no room whatever in our country 
for this doctrine, our religion and customs as well as our social organ- 
ization being entirely unfavorable to its implantation. In Turkey 
there are neither great capitalists nor millions of artisans and work- 
ingmen. On the other hand, we are not saddled with an agrarian 
question. Finally, from the social point of view, our religious prin- 
ciples are such as to dispense us with the adoption of bolshevism. 
The best proof that the Turkish nation has no leanings in favor of 
this doctrine and that, if necessary, it is ready to combat it, is to be 
found in the attempt of Ferid Pasha to deceive the nation by way of 
alarming it into the belief that bolshevism has invaded the land or is 
on the point of doing so. The Ferid Pasha cabinet is truly a coat 
cut to measure of the expansionist ambitions of the English. The 
latter, founding their plans on their experiences in India, Egypt, and 
the other countries they have succeeded in bringing under their 
arbitrary rule, realize full well that after reducing the Turkish 
nation to the condition of a flock deprived of all sense of human 
dignity and all national and patriotic virtues, as well as of the right 
of liberty and education, they will be able to degrade it into a troop 
of slaves bowing to their will. This is the end toward which they 
are working, having recourse to numberless intrigues in our midst 
in view of its attainment. To quote a few instance of their tactics: 

(a ) Falsely accusing quite a number of Ottoman citizens of union- 
ism, opposition to England, and what not, they proceeded to arrest 
and exile them, thus tampering with the country's judicial rights. 
Besides this, they are busy discovering or creating reasons for the 
arrest of the Nationalists and patriots remaining in the country and 
employ the Government as an instrument for persecuting them. 

(b) With the idea of bringing about the partition of the Empire 
and creating a fratricidal struggle between Turks and Kurds, they 
incited the latter to join in a plan for the establishment of an inde- 
pendent Kurdistan under English protection, the argument put for- 
ward by them being that the Empire was, in any case, condemned 
to dissolution. For the carrying out of this enterprise they spent 
large sums of money, had recourse to every form of espionage, and 
even sent emissaries on the spot. Thus an English officer of the 
name of Naivill exerted himself in this sense for a long time at 
Diarbckir, having recourse to every kind of fraud and deception in 
his operations. But our Kurd compatriots, guessing what was on 
foot, drove him out of the place as well as a handful of traitors who 
had sold their consciences for mone} T . Disappointed in his action 
at Kiarbckir, Mr. Naivill betook himself to Malatia with several 
adventurers belonging to the Bedrihan clan and whom he had won 
Over with money but who enjoy no credit with their kinsmen such 
as Kiamouran, Djaladoh, and Diarbekirli, Djemil Pasha Lade 

S. Doc. 266, 66-2—3 



34 CONDITION'S IN THE NEAR EAST. 

Ekrem. There he renewed his attempt in view of the establishment 
of an independent Kurdistan in collaboration with the mutesarif 
(subgovernor), Khasil Bey, also a member of the Bedrihan clan. 

On the other hand, combining with the Vali of Kharput, Ghalil 
Bey — an instrument of the self-seeking Minister of the Interior Abil 
Bey and the likewise self-seeking Minister of War Suleyman Chefik 
Pasha — who was committed to take measures against the national 
movement and more especially against the Sivas Congress, he and the 
crowd of his associates started the cry, "The Armenian soldiers are 
going to occupy the country — to arms," intending in this manner to 
provoke a rising of our simple-minded Kurdish compatriots. The 
object of this wicked plan was threefold: To resuscitate Kurdish 
particularism, to destroy the national forces, and to create a conflict 
and the shedding of blood between children of the same country. 
The conspirators did not even shrink from trying to implicate in the 
projected tragedy a detachment of troops Ghalil Bey had asked for 
under pretense of pursuing personally a band of brigands which was 
said to have ransacked the mail. (Several documents concerning 
this affair are annexed to the present memorandum.) 

These individuals met with the confusion which was to be expected 
of their underestimation of the national forces. The local population 
which remained innocent of all participation in these intrigues very 
soon understood their criminal meaning and was proceeding to take 
the culprits into custody when they fled. » 

(c) While perfect tranquillity was reigning in Eski Shehir, English 
troors entered the house of the local commandant, Col. Atif Bey, 
and putting forward the most unlikely calumnies against him, carried 
him off under the eyes of his soldiers and sent him under escort to 
Constantinople. In explanation of the emotion and effervescence 
very naturally caused among the local population by the outrage the 
English spread reports to the effect that the Bolshevists and unionists 
were invading the district and on this pretense adopted special 
military measures in the locality. 

(d) Ferid Pasha publishes, by means of the telegraphic agencies, 
the report that disturbances are taking place in Anatolia and his 
accomplices, the English, making out that the Armenians are being 
made the victims of outrages in Sivas, addresses a minatory note to 
the Sublime Porte. At the same time an outcry is raised on the 
invaded ground that a massacre of the Christians is being planned 
at Marzivan. As a matter of fact, not only has it been ascertained 
materially that no such things have happened, but that there is 
absolutely no likelihood of their occurring. On the contrary, the 
encounters which were taking place in the region of Samsoun before 
the organization of the national movement between the Greek 
bands formed with a political object and the Mussulmen population 
against which the former were practicing their ferocity and who, in 
the absence of all protection on the part of the army and gendarmerie, 
was forced to act in self-defense, have stopped as a result of the 
advice given to both sides by the national organization and without 
recourse having been had to measures of force. To-day perfect 
tranquillity reigns in this region as in the other parts of the country. 

VI. We entertain no unfriendly dispositions toward the Armenian 
Republic of which Erivan is the center. For the present the league 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 35 

lias no relations with this State and is not interested in it. Our 
knowledge concerning it is derived from rumors and indirect informa- 
tion. We know, however, so much to be a fact that the Armenians 
in the new State are carrying on operations in view of exterminating 
the Mussulmen element in obedience to orders from the Armenian 
corps commander. We have had copies of their orders under our 
eyes. That the Armenians of Erivan are following a policy of 
extermination against the Mussulmen and this wave of sanguinary 
savagery has spread right up to our frontier is also established by the 
fact of the presence within our borders of numerous Mussulmen fleeing 
from death on the other side. The government of Erivan has, on 
the other hand, resorted to direct acts of provocation such as the 
practice of gunfire this side of the border. 

Although the course of these events the English encouraged on the 
one hand the Armenians in the attitude adopted by them against the 
Mussulmen or even stirred them up to it and, on the other hand, 
enumerating to us the outrages of the former and describing them as 
unbearable, they urged us to retaliate by attacking the neighboring 
State. But we, putting up with the Armenian provocations, turned 
a deaf ear to the indignations of the English, feeling sure that the 
truth would make itself known soon enough. As a matter of fact we 
thought we could detect in the attitude of the English trying to 
launch us upon an attack against Armenia, the plan of creating a 
situation of which they would avail themselves to dispatch their own 
troops into that country. All these maneuvers of the English were 
started by their officers and representatives after they saw them- 
selves obliged to evacuate Caucasia. 

We hear that conflicts are taking place between the Azarbaijanese 
and the Erivan Armenians. We presume that the reason for this is 
the refusal of the Armenians to join the alliance concluded between 
the Azarbaijanese and the Georgians against England's protege, 
Denikin, who is trying to push southward. 

It is quite natural that the Mussulmen of Erzeroum and Van, and 
more particularly those among them living in the border regions 
should have reached a high state of excitement as a result of the news 
reaching them daily of the massacres in Armenia and the sight of the 
unfortunate refugees having escaped death and whose condition is 
lamentable. What adds to their effervescence is the gunfire practice 
of the Armenians without our border. But our organization has 
succeeded in appeasing them and all likelihood of violent reaction on 
their part has been exerted. 

VII. Refraining from going to the assistance of the unfortunate 
Mussulmen population in Armenia and from collaborating with the 
Mussulmen of Azarbaijan, we consider it indispensable to confine our 
action and aims to the task of insuring the future existence and 
welfare of the Fatherland and Nation, within the borders already 
defined. We are, in effect, convinced that Fouranism is a mischievous 
conception. We consider that, by dispersing our material and moral 
forces in the pursuit of chimeras a long distance from our frontiers, 
we will only weaken the strength we require for defending the seat of 
the throne and caliphate which is the heart of our Fatherland and 
the knot of our existence. 






36 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

Quite recent events, unfolding themselves under our very eyes, have 
taught us to remain faithful to moderate conceptions. For instance, 
during the general war which has not yet ended in peace, the man at 
the head of our Government employed the Ottoman forces to attain 
such ends as the conquest of Caucasia, the strengthening of the 
Azarbaijan Government and the recovery of Egypt. As a result of 
this policy the very source of life in our real Fatherland, the popula- 
tion has diminished considerably. Many fertile and otherwise 
valuable lands have been wrested from us and even within the fron- 
tiers we have assigned to ourselves as our last future, our capital, as 
well as such peerless sections of our country as Smyrna, Adalia, and 
Adana are under foreign military occupation. Whereas, if we had 
not entered the war, or at least, if having entered it, we had wisely 
employed our forces with a view to defending our territory within its 
existing borders, instead of wasting them in ambitious enterprises, our 
situation, though perhaps still that of a vanquished people, would be 
different from what it is. 

In any case the spreading of the preposterous report that Fouran- 
ism forms part of our aims and action is but another instance of the 
calumnies in which the English indulge at our expense. 

VIII. With a view to distorting the truth, that is the purely 
national character of our movement, the English have also thrown 
into circulation reports to the effect that we have obtained money 
now from the Germans or Bolshevists, now from the foreign Mussul- 
men or unionists, now again from Enver Pasha, and we do not know 
who else. These reports suiting the Ferid Pasha cabinet, it is giving 
them prominence after sorting and strengthening them. In reality 
our league has no connection whatsoever with the sources just 
mentioned, and can not have, since, as explained from the very 
beginning, our object is purely national and patriotic and follows an 
open course. To accept money from any source whatsoever, it is 
necessary for us who pursue a conservative and legitimate object, to 
sacrifice the money thus received to the intentions and wishes of the 
donors. 

Generally speaking, our league does not require as large sums of 
money as is imagined. Ours is not an illegitimate object, acceptance 
of which by a foreign power we are trying to obtain. by means of 
money. Nor are we in a position obliging us to buy the conscience 
of some other nation. Nor, again, are we in the necessity of suggest- 
ing an unknown object to our nation, spending money for the pur- 
pose. Our league is the result of a pure and patriotic movement 
born of the national consciousness and consists in the adoption by 
this movement of a national form and organization. Our treasury 
is the conscience of the nation which has learnt to appreciate the 
value of independence and patriotism. The sources of our revenues 
are the spontaneous donations of the nation. 

IX. After the armistice the European powers fell into the mistake 
of imagining that in Turkey there was not a nation conscious of its 
rights and ready to defend them. Whatever a lifeless country and a 
bloodless nation is worthy of that is what it was sought to apply to us. 
The idea was entertained at the Versailles conference of partitioning 
our fatherland and distributing its fragments as presents right and 
left. It is a subject for thankfulness that these preposterous de- 



CONDITION'S IN THE NEAK EAST. 37 

cisions, which were calculated to plunge humanity in new tragedies, 
have been deferred. It is also a subject for thankfulness that the 
decisive resolutions concerning our fate have been made dependent 
on the deliberations and decisions of the American Congress. It was 
the faith placed in the nationalistic and natural principles put for- 
ward by the American Nation that brought about the end of the 
general war which has soaked the soil of the globe with human blood 
and strewn it with human corpses, thus causing the shedding of 
endless tears. 

We entertain an unshaken confidence that thanks to the humane 
decisions of the Americans the ground will be found for the estab- 
lishment of an enduring and perfect peace. We have no doubt that 
the American Nation and the American Congress, representing the 
cause of civilization, right, and justice in its midst, have been suffi- 
ciently enlightened in regard to our pure-hearted Turkish people and 
its degree of attachment to and connection with, civilization and will 
adopt the most efficient, equitable, and practical resolutions concern- 
ing its fate, leaving us thus overflowing with gratitude. 

X. The Turkish people possess a more than 10-century-old right of 
existence in these lands. This is established by the survival of nu- 
merous relics of the past. As for the Ottoman State, it dates from 
seven centuries and can boast a glorious past and history. We are a 
people whose power and majesty were recognized by the world in 
three such continents as Asia, Europe, and Africa. Our men of war 
and merchantmen sailed the oceans and carried our flag as far as 
India. Our capabilities are proven by the power we once wielded 
and which had become world-wide". But during the last century the 
intrigues of the European powers in our capital and as a result of 
these intrigues their interference with our independence, the re- 
strictions with which they trammeled our economic life, the seeds of 
discord they sowed between us and the non-Moslem elements with 
which we had been living on fraternal terms for centuries, and added 
to these circumstances the weakness and resulting misrule of our 
Governments have acted as obstacles to our advance in the paths of 
modern progress and prosperity. The painful condition which is ours 
to-day does not in the least imply any radical incapacity on our part 
or incompatibility with modern civilization. It is solely due to the 
persistence of the adverse causes enumerated above. 

We can give. the most positive assurances that our country, if freed 
from the incubus of foreign intrigue and intervention and if its affairs 
are managed by a capable government respectful of the national will 
and wishes, it will presently assume a. condition which will be a 
source of satisfaction to the whole world. 

We make a special point of adding that the assistance of a powerful 
and impartial foreign nation will be of great value to us in saving us 
from the iniquitous oppression of which we are the victims and in 
hastening our development. 

We derive great hope from the Wilsonian doctrine embodying the 
nationalistic principle and from the spirit of justice and humani- 
tarianism displayed by the American Nation in its action to insure its 
triumph. 

MOUSTAPHA KEMAL PASHA. 



38 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

Exhibit D. 

American Military Mission, 

On Board U. 8. S. "Martha Washington," October 9, 1919. 
My Dear General: I acknowledged receipt at Samsoun of your 
letter setting forth the aims of the party of which you are the chief. 
I thank you for it. In our journey after leaving Sivas we were 
recipients of many courtesies from your people. 

I have been informed by members of my mission who have traveled 
through Malatia, Kaiseriya, and Marsovan that the Armenian people 
in those regions are still very apprehensive of danger from the 
Nationalist movement, and that some are leaving their homes again 
in consequence of threats from their Turkish neighbors. I found 
similar uneasiness in other -places. I again invite your attention to 
the keen interest America has in the safety and welfare of these peo- 
ple, as shown by President Wilson's cable to the Turkish Govern- 
ment, and suggest a wider circulation of the information that your 
organization is in no way inimical to the Christian population of the 
Ottoman Empire, as I understood from you is the case. 

Please accept my thanks for your courtesy to my party, and believe 
me, 

Very truly, yours, 

Jas. G. Harbord, 
Major General, United States Army. 
Gen. Mustapha Kemal, 

Representative of the Committee for the Defense 

of Turkey, Sivas, Turkey. 



Exhibit E. 

DECLARATION OF THE CONGRESS OF SIVAS. 

In view of the exterior and interior perils which threaten our 
country, the national conscience has become awakened and gave 
birth to our congress, which has reached the following decision: 

I. All of the Turkish territory within the frontier outlined 30 Oc- 
tober, 1334 (1918), between the Ottoman Government and the Allies, 
and inhabited by a preponderate majority of Turk population, will 
form an undivided and inseparable whole. All the Mussulman ele- 
ments living in said territories are filled with mutual sentiments of 
respect and devotion for the social conditions of the county and form 
a veritable fraternity. 

II. In order to assure the integrity of our country and our national 
independence, as well as to assure the conservation of the Sultanat 
and supreme Califat, it is indispensable to place in action the national 
forces and the absolute will of the people. 

III. Against all intermeddling or occupation of no matter what part 
of the Ottoman territory, and in particular against every movement 
tending toward the formation, at the expense of the mother country, 
of an independent Armenia and of an independent Greece on the 
Aidin, Magnesie, and Balikessir fronts, we are absolutely resolved to 
resist and to defend our rights. 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 39 

IV. It is inadmissible that privileges be accorded all non-Mussul- 
man elements who, for ages, have lived from the breast of the same 
country and who enjoy of the same rights of equality; such privileges 
would tend to trouble our political government and break the social 
equilibrium. 

V. All methods and all means are taken with a view to safeguard 
the Sultanat, the supreme Oalifat, and the integrity of the country in 
the case where the Turkish Government, under foreign pressure, 
should be called upon to abandon no matter what part of our territory. 

VI. We await a decision which will conform with right and with 
such justice as will annul the initiatives that are contrary to our 
historic, ethnic, and religious rights; a decision relative to the annulling 
of the project of the separation of our territory situated within the 
line of demarcation traced by the armistice treaty, 30 October, 1334, 
and inhabited by a preponderate majority of Mussulman population 
having an intellectual preponderance and economic superiority and 
forming an absolutely inclivisible brotherhood which is inseparable 
of race and religion. 

VII. Our people honor and respect humanitarian and contemporary 
purposes and take in consideration our scientific, industrial, and 
economic needs; in consequence whereof, on condition that the 
interior and exterior independence of our people and of our State, and 
on condition that the territorial integrity of our country shall be 
conserved intact, we will accept with pleasure the scientific, industrial, 
and economic assistance of every State which will not set forth im- 
perialistic tendencies with respect to our country and which will 
respect the principles of nationality within the limits indicated under 
Article VI. We await in the name of the preservation of humanity 
and universal peace the urgent signature of a peace based on the 
aforenamed equitable and humanitarian conditions which we consider 
to be our great national objective. 

VIII. In the course of historic events which fix the destinies of 
nations, it is indispensible that our central Government shall submit 
itself to the national will, for the arbitrary decision, emanating from 
a government which treats lightly of the supreme will of the people 
not only causes that government not to be respected but, again, it 
could not be taken into consideration ; the history of our past is proof. 
In consequence, it is absolutely urgent that before taking the means 
to remedy the anguish which exists within the very breast of the 
nation, our central Government shall proceed without delaying 
further to convoke the Nationalist Assembly and submit all the 
decisions to take with a view to safeguarding the interestsof the nation. 

IX. The sufferings and the calamities of the nations have given 
birth to a federal assembly called ''the assembly to defend the rights 
and the interests of the Provinces of Anatolia and of Roumelia." 
That assembly abstracts all the tendencies of the political parties so 
that all our Mussulman compatriots as such can be considered as 
legitimate members of that assembly. 

X. The congress of that assembly, named "the assembly to defend 
the rights and the interests of the Provinces of Anatolia and of Rou- 
melia," which met at Sivas 4 September, 1335 (1919), has chosen a 
representative corps charged to push on the proposed sacred cause 
and to direct such similar organizations as well in the smaller commu- 
nities as in the larger centers of the vilayets. 

The Congress. 






40 CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 

Exhibit F. 

To the President of the Senate of the United States of 

America : 

The National Congress of Sivas, representing the entire Moham- 
medan population of European Turkey and Asia Minor, and com- 
posed of delegates representing every Province and State in said 
portions of'the Ottoman Empire, assembled on September 4, 1919, 
for the purpose of securing the fulfillment of the wishes of the ma- 
jority of the population of the Empire with the protection of all 
minorities and with life, liberty, justice, and inviolability of property 
rights guaranteed for all. 

The National Congress of Sivas, by unanimous vote on September 
9, 1919, passed a resolution outlining the desires of the majority of 
the population of the Ottoman Empire and embodying the principles 
which will guide the future action of the congress at Sivas, the central 
committee, which it will elect from among its members before dis- 
persal, and all of the subsidiary organizations within the frontiers of 
the Empire. 

In accordance with the said resolution of policy, the National 
Congress of Sivas this day, by unanimous vote, requests the Senate 
of the United States of America to send a committee of its Members 
to visit all confines of the Ottoman Empire for the purpose of in- 
vestigating, with the clear vision of a disinterested nation, conditions 
as they actually are in the Ottoman Empire, before permitting the 
arbitrary disposal of the peoples and territories of the Ottoman 
Empire by a treaty of peace. 

In the name of the National Congress of Sivas: 

President Moustapha Kemal Pasha. 

Vice President Htjssien Raouf. 

Second Vice President Tamailfazil Pasha. 

General en Retraite. 
Secretary Emir Xamail Hamey 
Secretary M. Chukri. 

Sivas, Turkey, September 9, 1919. 



CONDITIONS IN THE NEAR EAST. 



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